More on Human-Scale Supercomputing, past and future

Continuing thread of Mike Griffin's post, I thought this piece was interesting>


The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing / February 29, 2008
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From the Editor

Human-Scale Supercomputing

In this issue, I highlighted a recent commentary written by Prof. Hans Werner Meuer, who writes about the 15 year anniversary of the TOP500 project. Meuer did a great job at recounting the history of the list and provided some interesting anecdotes of his favorite machines. Although in the past, I've offered criticism of the list, in the feature article I focused on some of the more practical aspects of the TOP500 project that Meuer discusses. That includes using the list as a historical record for tracking the evolution of high performance computing over the last decade and a half, and to project its future.

One of the more positive effects of the TOP500 project -- and one that Meuer doesn't mention -- is that it helps to popularize the notion of supercomputing to the wider industry and maybe more importantly, to the general public. While this might seem superficial, the twice yearly list at least provides valuable PR for the almost invisible HPC community.

Save for the occasional article in the mainstream media about how supercomputers have predicted climate changes or discovered some mystery of the universe, most of HPC is hidden from public view. The missing element in most stories about supercomputers is how they relate to the human condition at the scale of the individual. It's not that climate modeling, derivative pricing or seismic simulations are not worthwhile applications. But linking supercomputing to personal applications would inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers.

Consider this. In Meuer's 15-year TOP500 retrospective mentioned above, he talks about some of his favorite supercomputers, one of which was "Deep Blue," the IBM machine that bested world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. Arguably the most famous supercomputer ever built, Deep Blue ranked a modest 259 on the 9th TOP500 list.

Writes Meuer:
"This system, named Deep Blue, was installed at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights and had a best Linpack performance of 11.37 Gigaflop/s; it was an IBM SP2 P2SC with 32 processors and a clock rate of 120 MHz. But the floating point performance was not what really mattered: Each of the 32 processors was equipped with 15 special-purpose VLSI chess chips. Deep Blue was the first chess computer to beat a reigning world chess champion, Garry Kasparov. Ten years after this event, no chess player stands a chance against any kind of computer, not even against a simple home computer. One year ago, in November/December 2006, Deep Fritz played a six-game match against reigning world chess champion Wladimir Kramnik in Bonn. Deep Fritz won 4-2."

The chess matchup inspired a book by Deep Blue's designer Feng-hsiung Hsu, "Behind Deep Blue," and a 2003 documentary, "Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine." Since the machine was retired after beating Kasparov, no supercomputer has quite captured the public imagination the way Deep Blue did. Why? Almost everyone can relate to playing a game of chess, whether or not they have actually done so.

Contrast this with Meuer's number one favorite, Intel's ASCI Red, the first teraflop machine. Although, one of the most legendary supercomputers ever built, it's almost unknown outside of the HPC community. This machine was used to provide simulation capabilities for nuclear weapons -- an eminently useful task, but one not likely to be taken up by the average citizen (one hopes).

Software with elements of artificial intelligence (AI), like chess playing, constitute some of the most compelling computing applications to the public. And while AI and supercomputing might seem like a natural fit, for a variety of reasons, the two communities never really hooked up. Today, the AI field remains fragmented with a lot of competing paradigms and not much to show for it. Most of the work never made it out of the lab or the lecture hall. After 50-plus years of research, a lot computer techies sneer at the whole AI meme.

Yet it is these types of applications that have the potential to excite a new generation of technologists and motivate them to become involved in something more transformative than say quantum chromodynamics (not that there's anything wrong with QCD groupies). The commercialization of AI could help place supercomputing back into the public eye. We're not necessarily talking about "big iron" here. A lot of machine intelligence, though, will likely require massive levels of parallelism, in a tightly-coupled architecture (think manycore). Intel is currently developing a software model for terascale computing platforms that would enable such applications. Called RMS -- for recognition, mining, synthesis -- Intel believes this technology could be the basis for the killer apps of the next decade.

In Ray Kurzweil's 1990 book, "The Age of Intelligent Machines," he talked about a number of AI systems that would be developed in the 21st century. At a time when Pac-Man was the cutting edge in computer games, he described computer-generated animation twenty years into the future with uncanny accuracy: "Reasonably lifelike video images of human faces ... completely synthesized and animated." He also predicted the triumph of a computer over the top human chess player by 1998 -- actually underestimating Deep Blue's accomplishment by one year.

In his book, Kurzweil mentioned a number of other applications that have not yet come to pass, including the cybernetic chauffeur, the intelligent assistant, the intelligent answering machine, and the translating telephone. The latter is a machine that would automatically translate the language of the two parties as they spoke in real-time. The technology required to do so includes automatic speech recognition, language translation, and speech synthesis. All three existed at the time the book was written 18 years ago, but not nearly at the level of sophistication they are today. With the continued improvement in microprocessor power and software, it is certainly conceivable that such technologies will be incorporated into virtually every phone and phone-like device within the next 10 years.

The effects of ubiquitous language translation would be enormous. That single application would not only greatly accelerate economic and social globalization, it would also revolutionize travel. By today's standards, Thomas Friedman's "Flat Earth" would look annoyingly bumpy.
In the meantime, HPC will continue to be used for such tasks as saving the Earth from global warming, protecting the nuclear arsenal, and cracking the genetic code. But after that, the real fun begins.

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As always, comments about HPCwire are welcomed and encouraged. Write to me, Michael Feldman, at editor@hpcwire.com.

Tony Cortizas photos of GM Larry Christiansen at the BCC

The eminent chess photographer Tony Cortizas shares his images of the recent lecture - simul by GM Larry Christiansen at the Boylston:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ChessJournal/GMLarryChristiansenAtBCC

.

Thanks Tony. Great photos, as usual.

Aeroflot Open (Part 3 of 3)
by Alex Cherniack

I would like to share with BCC members my games and impressions from the Aeroflot Open, a 9-round Swiss held in Moscow from February 13 to 23, 2008. I played in Section B with 134 players. I started well with 2 points out of 3, but then lost 5 games in row before salvaging a win in the last round – my report card is at www.aeroflotchess.com/results/b/SMWSite/players/p085.html. When I was there, the exchange rate was 24 rubles to the dollar. I will split up the headings in these postings according to each individual day of my trip from February 12 to 23.

FEBRUARY 19 – ROUND 7

Now I was pissed! I blew a winning advantage, then kept trying to win a drawn position and lost that as well. I was over-tilting in trying come back from 3 losses in a row. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, those who sacrifice objectivity for points deserve neither.

Nasir Ahmed (2379) - Alex Cherniack (2277)

1. e4 e6 2. Qe2

My opponent was from Bangladesh, and his games dated back to 1980. He played offbeat opening lines with both 1.d4 and 1.e4, so there wasn’t much focused preparation I could do.

2…e5

In my opinion, this is the easiest way to play against Chigorin’s move. Black takes two moves to play his pawn to e5, but now the Queen just looks silly on e2.

3. Nf3 Nc6 4. c3 Be7 5. g3 d6 6. Bg2 f5 7. d3 Nf6 8. Nh4 fxe4 9. dxe4 Be6 10. Nf5 O-O 11. O-O Qd7 12. Nxe7+ Nxe7 13. Nd2 Bh3 14. Nc4 Bxg2 15. Kxg2 Qc6 16. f3 Qa6 17. Rf2 h6

Black has equalized without difficulty.

18. Be3 b6 19. a4 Rf7 20. a5 Raf8 21. Nd2 Qb7 22. a6 Qa8

Black wants to play 23…d5 24.ed Nexd5, threatening 25...Ng4.

23. c4 c6 24. Rff1 d5 25. c5

I was expecting 25.cxd5 cxd5 26.exd5, where I planned to play 26...Nfxd5 27.Ne4 Nf5. White's continuation bypasses Black's center in the hope of using his advanced pawns on the Queenside.

25…b5 26. Bg1 Qb8

Covering the b5 and e5 pawns.

27. b4 Nd7 28. Ra5 Nf6 29. Ra3 Ng6 30. h3 h5?!

This was the only way I could find to break into White’s position, although 30…d4 31.h4 Nh5 32.Kh2 Qc8 looks more promising.

31. h4 Rd8 32. Be3 Nf8 33. Bg5 Ne6 34. exd5 Nd4 35. Qd3 cxd5 36. Ra5 Qc8



37. f4?!

This boomerangs on White. Better was 37.Nb3 Nxb3 38.Qxb3 with a double-edged game.

37…Nc6 38. fxe5 Nxe5 39. Qf5?

39.Qxb5 d4 is dangerous for White, but necessary.

39… Qxf5 40. Rxf5 Nc6! 41. Ra1

41.Rxb5? Nd4 forks the Rooks.

41…Re8 42. Nf3 Re2+ 43. Kf1



43…Re4?

43…Rc2! 44. Rb1 Rc4 was a game-ender. Time pressure was rearing its ugly head, mocking my technique.

44. Rd1! Rxb4

44…Nb4 45.Nd4 is good for White.

45. Bxf6 Rxf6 46. Rxf6 gxf6 47. Rxd5 Rc4 48. Nd2!

I could only see within 30 second increments 48.Rxh5 b4. I was getting that terrible sinking feeling again.

48… Rc1+ 49. Ke2 b4 50. Rxh5 Ne5?

This doesn’t cut off the Rook at all. I still had a small advantage after 50…Ra1.

51. Rf5 Kg7 52. Rf4 Nc6 53. Rc4 Ra1 54. Nb3 Rxa6 55. Nd4 Ra2+?

This loses. Here I should have bailed out into a probable draw with 55…Nxd4+ 56.Rxd4 Rc6 57.Rxb4 Rxc5 58.Rb7+ Kg6 59.Rxa7 Kg6 60.Rc7 Rg3. But I had lost my objectivity in this game many moves ago.

56. Ke3 Nxd4 57. Kxd4 Rd2+ 58. Ke3

I honestly thought White had to play 58.Ke4, when I had time for 58…a5.

58…Rd7 59. Rxb4 Kg6 60. c6 Rc7 61. Rc4 Kf5 62. Kd4 Ke6 63. Kc5 f5 64. Rc3 1-0

I went back to my room in a foul mood, which became fouler still when ChessBase shut down in the middle of trying to input the above game (I had to restart ChessBase to finish mousing it in). Then I couldn’t find my thumb drive to back up the entered game; after 20 twenty futile minutes of searching I went out, and was delayed by some jackass who pressed all the floor buttons in the elevator.

I remember what Lazlo Nagy, the organizer of the First Saturday tournaments, said when I played in his IM section in 2005: if you’re not playing well, don’t be a baby and drop out. Well, I wasn’t going to win the section, win any cash, or even finish with a 50% score. I did though want to finish with more than 2 points, even if that meant one more lousy draw.

To take my mind off this train wreck of a tournament, I went to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. I went there on a weekday afternoon, so it wasn’t nearly as crowded as the Treyakov art gallery. The official address of the museum is 12 Volkhonka Ulitsa, but actually the contents are in 2 separate buildings.

Building 12 holds the old masters. To get past the construction to the exhibit halls, I had to enter via “Service Entrance No. 5” off a side street. The cashier’s office from there was not marked, and was a flight up on the right hand side of the stairs. And once inside the exhibit, the halls were numbered although not in chronological order. The contents, however, are well worth seeing: excellently preserved Egyptian mummies, and a striking collection of paintings from Botticelli, Greco, Rubens, and Rembrandt.

Building 14/1 holds the impressionists. Here was an even more amazing exhibit of works from Goya, Courbet, Degas, Manet, Toulouse-Latrec, Monet, Rodin, Pissarro, Renoir, Van Gogh (they had his famous 1890 painting The Prison Courtyard , which reminds me of break times at work), Munch, Cezanne, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, Kandinsky, and Chagall. As a bonus, housed here were a few pictures of an Alaskan painter I love, Rockwell Kent.

Back at the hotel, I discovered that my round 8 opponent was Tigran Gasparian from Armenia. Finally, I was paired down again! I also found the thumb drive wedged under the TV stand. ChessBase on the laptop was beginning to shut down after every 45 seconds; through multiple restarts, I was able to determine that my opponent liked the QGD 3…Be7 and 3…c6 variations against 1.d4.

FEBRUARY 20 – ROUND 8

I was beginning to feel what an American soccer team must feel when they played in the World Cup. This tournament was turning out to be what the coach on the team would call a rebuilding year. (Or, in Adrian Casillas's immortal words, "When chess is bad, it's BAD.")

Alex Cherniack (2277) - Tigran Gasparian (2255)

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c6 4. e4 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Bb4+ 6. Bd2 Qxd4 7. Bxb4 Qxe4+ 8. Be2



This variation has a ridiculous amount of choices for Black, and much theory is embedded within each choice. I went over all the moves from my preparation the previous night, but very little stuck beyond move 15.

8...Nd7 9. Bd6 Ne7 10. Nf3

Possible was 10.Bxe7 Kxe7 11.0-0, but I didn't want to waste moves.

10…Nf5 11. h4 Nxd6 12. Qxd6 Qf5 13. h5 Qc5 14. Qd2 O-O



15. Qc3

Worse is 15.h6 g6 16.Qc3 f6 followed by 17…e5, and Black has an impregnable wall of pawns. Instead I develop my Rook on h1 in an unorthodox way.

15…h6 16. Rh4 e5 17. Re4 f5 18. Re3 e4 19. Nh4 Nf6

White has good compensation for the pawn after 19…Ne5 20.f4 exf3 21.gxf3.

20. Ng6 Rd8 21. Nf4 a5 22. a3 a4 23. Rc1 b6

23…Qa5 24.c5 Qxc3+ 25.Rexc3 Nd5 26.Nxd5 cxd5 27.c6 gives White counterplay.

24. Qc2 Ra7 25. Rd1 Rxd1+ 26. Qxd1 Qa5+ 27. Rc3 Rd7 28. Qc1 Rd4

28…e3 doesn’t work because of 29.Qxe3 Ne4 30.Ng6 Nxc3? 31.Qe8+ and mate next move.

29. Qe3 c5 30. Qg3 Qa7



31. Ng6 Be6 32. Qe5 Qd7 33. Qb8+ Qd8 34. Qa7 Bf7?

I was very worried about 34…Rd2. After 35.Rg3 Rxb2 White has no time for threats on g7 because of 36...Qd2+.

35. Ne5 Qe8

35…Bxh5? 36.Bxh5 Nxh5 37.Qf7+ Kh8 38.Qxh5 covers the d1 square.

36. Nxf7 Qxf7 37. Qxb6



White is better here but, once again, my technique deserted me.

37…Qe7 38. Qb8+?

Stronger was 38.Qc6. The threat of 38…f4 39.Qxa4 f3 40.gxf3 exf3 41.Rxf3 was not dangerous, but try telling yourself that when you have less than 10 minutes on the clock!

38… Rd8 39. Qf4 Qb7 40. Rc2 e3 41. f3 Qb3 42. Rc3?

Seeing phantoms. 42.Qxf5 Qa2 43.Qe6+ and 44.Qxe3 holds everything together.

42…Qxb2 43. Rxe3 Qc1+ 44. Kf2 Qc2 45. Qc7 Rf8 46. Qxc5 Nxh5 47. Qd5+ Kh8 48. Qd1?

After 48.Qd3 Qb2 49.c5 Nf4 50.Qc4 White is fine.

48…Qb2 49. Qxa4 f4 50. Rd3?

This finally loses. What was wrong with 50.Re8?!

50… Ng3 51. Qd1 Re8 52. Rd8 Qb6+ 0-1

I had yet another advantage, again made several consecutive inaccurate moves, still couldn’t keep an even keel for a draw, and dropped my fifth game in a row. I don’t mind being beaten by a much stronger player – that’s life - but I do hate beating myself. My opponent was nice and offered to go over the game with me, but all the skittles tables were occupied. I wished him bcevo dobrovo, shook hands with him, and went out to see the VDNH (All-Union Exhibition of National Economy Achievements, today called the All-Russian Exhibition Center).

The VDNH is a park devoted to the accomplishments of the USSR, and time has passed it by; half the pavilions were closed, and the other half were filled with shops to pay the rent. The buildings were still magnificent in their enormity, even if they were crumbling. I wanted to see the Space Museum before it closed at 6:00 PM, so I noted the entrance by the 400 foot tall obelisk with a rocket on the top, and walked on to see half the exhibition halls next to the main entrance. I raced back to the Space Museum at 4:00, only to discover that it had been closed for repairs. So I hiked back to where I was before and saw the remainder of the pavilions.









Walking around, I felt a strange sense of loss and nostalgia. The people in the USSR I had visited 20 years ago loved meeting Americans, even if I was only a means to an end in receiving goods and ideas that they couldn’t find at home. Now that Russians can buy the same things in Moscow that they can in the West, Americans are no longer special, and the only thing we seem to be good for these days is practice for their English.

Back at the hotel I found that my round 9 (and mercifully, last) opponent in the tournament would be Jorge Biblioni from Argentina. Amidst the multiple restarts of ChessBase on my laptop I discovered that he liked playing the Exchange Variation against the French. Ironically, this game was going to be played on board 64.

FEBRUARY 21 – ROUND 9

It felt good to end the tournament on a high note. I really didn’t want to finish with a loss, so in an equal position I offered a draw to my opponent on move 35. He declined, and then offered me a draw on move 44. Unfortunately for him, the move with which he made his draw offer lost the game.

Jorge Biblioni (2180) - Alex Cherniack (2277)

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Nf3 Bd6 5. c4 dxc4 6. Bxc4 Nf6 7. O-O O-O 8.h3 Nbd7 9. Nc3 c6 10. Bg5 h6 11. Be3?!

Maintaining the pin with 11.Bh4 was stronger.

11…Nb6 12. Bb3 Re8 13. Qd3 Be6

Black has fully equalized.

14. Na4 Nxa4 15. Bxa4 Qa5 16. Bb3 Bxb3 17. Qxb3 Re7 18. Rfe1 Rae8 19. Bd2 Qd5 20. Rxe7 Rxe7 21. Qxd5 Nxd5 22. Re1 f6 23. Rxe7 Nxe7 24. Kf1 Kf7 25. Ke2 Ke6 26. a3 Kd5



Black has a small edge here, but not much more.

27.Kd3 g5 28. Ne1 f5 29. g4 Ke6 30. f3 Nd5 31. Ng2 Bg3 32. Ne3 Ne7

For my purposes, best was 32…Nxe3 and 33…Bd6 with a certain draw.

33. Bb4 fxg4 34. hxg4 Bd6 35. Ba5

Better for White was 35.Bxd6 Kxd6 36.Ke4, but Black should hold after 36…Ke6.

35…Nd5

I offered a draw here.

36. Nxd5 Kxd5 37. Bd8 Bf8 38. Bf6 b5 39. Bh8 a5 40.Bf6 a4 41. Bh8

If the King goes too far away Black has the nasty shot 41…Bxa3! 42.bxa3 b4!.

41…Bd6 42. Bg7 Bf4 43. Bxh6 Bc1



44. Kc2?

White offered a draw in this position, but, unluckily, this move loses. After 44.Kc3 Be3 45.Bg7 Bf4, neither side can make progress, and a draw would have been the logical result.

44…Be3 45. Kd3 Bxd4 46. Bxg5 Bxb2 47. Be7 c5 48. g5 Bxa3

Threatening 48…c4+.

49. Bf6 c4+ 50. Kc2 Ke6 51. Bc3 Kf5

Black can stop White’s pawns, but White cannot stop Black’s.

52. Bd2 Bf8 53.Kc3 a3 54. Kc2 b4 55. Bc1 b3+ 56. Kc3 Bg7+ 0-1

I had almost forgotten how to win a chess game. After the consecutive losses it was hard for me to reestablish equilibrium with draws, because the opening repertoire I painstaking prepared for this tournament did not lend itself for drawish situations. And of course I was so anxious to right a negative balance with a point in the opposite column that I just dug myself a deeper and deeper hole.

That did it for the chess. The A1 and A2 sections had their final rounds the following day, and the closing ceremony wouldn’t take place until tomorrow at 6:30 PM. The weather being nice, I decided to see Kolomskoye, an ancient country estate of the tsars.

Kolomskoye was beautiful in the winter, the Church of Our Lady Kazan and the Church of the Ascension being especially pretty in the snow.

This place also had a log cabin that Peter The Great lived in for two years while supervising the construction of the Russian navy.

FEBRUARY 22 –CLOSING CEREMONY

Before the closing ceremony that night, I went off to see Kuskovo, the last of my guide book’s must-see Moscow recommendations. Kuskovo was the country estate of the Sheremetevs, one of the wealthiest aristocratic families in Russia.

To say reaching Kuskovo was a hassle would be an understatement. The guide book said the metro stop was Riazansky Prospect, but when I got off the train I didn’t see any signs for Kuskovo. The book also mentioned Vykhino one stop down the line as a metro station, so I hopped back on the train for one more stop, but I didn’t see any sign there either. Vykhino was a terminal point for the metro line, yet I had to exit the station and pay for another ticket in order to ride back to Rianzansky Prospect.

Then I looked at the guide book more closely, which said I had to take a bus ride as well.

At the Riazansky Prospect metro station I asked a lady where the busses were, and she pointed the way. I found the bus line mentioned in the book and a bus came immediately, but I didn't have time to buy a ticket and had to let the bus pass, and looking at the schedule found that it wouldn’t come back for 30 minutes. I ran into the lady again from the metro station and asked her where I could buy bus tickets. She didn’t know exactly, but thought that it might be across the street. I thanked her and found bus tickets at an unmarked newspaper stand across the street, then walked back and waited 25 minutes for the next bus to arrive. Just before it was scheduled to arrive, I asked a man if this bus was heading towards Kuskovo; he said that I had the right bus line, but had the wrong direction.

So I went back across the street, but couldn't find the bus listed on any of the posted schedules, and had to ask two people if I was in the right place. One didn't know, and the other gestured down the street as she ran to meet her arriving bus. After 5 more frustrating minutes, my bus did arrive but its stop was 600 feet down the road, and I had to run fast to catch it. After 10 minutes of anxiously looking out the window both ways (the guide book unhelpfully said it was a “short bus ride”), I saw Kuskovo out of the corner of my eye, pressed the stop request in the nick of time, and was finally there.

As Jack Paar once said, life is an obstacle course, with myself as the main obstacle.

I hate buses! Conceptually they are not as cut, dried, and encased as the metro is. The chessplayer in me can’t make a mental fix on the files, rows, and diagonals of a bus route. With a metro station, I can always extrapolate directions from its location on a map (like a square on a chessboard). But when I’m riding on a bus route for the first time, the stops are spread out over a dozen places on the street, and I have to deal with bends around the road and traffic lights. They also give me motion sickness whenever I try to read.

At Kuskovo they wanted 900 rubles for me to see all the exhibits – I handed over a 1000 ruble note. Then the cashier noticed the camera hanging around my neck, and said photography privileges cost an additional 100 rubles. Before I could enter, the guard had to rip my photography permit card, and make some mystifying notation in a ledger. What is with the Russian obsession of ripping entrance tickets and receipts??

Kuskovo was worth all the aggravation, as it is very much like a Russian Versailles. Because of the winter weather its formal gardens weren't open, but they had a two story palace made of wood that was plastered and painted to resemble stone, an Orangery with a beautiful collection of ceramic exhibits, and a “Grotto” pavilion, which inside looks like a gigantic collage covered with shells, porcelain, sand, and stucco.

The closing ceremony had champagne, but no food. I had a nice talk with Jorge Biblioni, my opponent from Round 9, and we agreed to go out to dinner together.

We ate at the Ice House, a restaurant less than 200 feet away from the entrance to Delta hotel. Jorge was a great guy - he was going to visit St. Petersburg after the tournament for the next 5 days. He was a lawyer from Mar del Plata, and knew Bobby Fischer when he visited Argentina in the early 1970’s. He greatly admired Fischer’s chess skill, and much more forgiving of Fischer’s personality than I was. We also discussed the lives of professional chess players in the United States and Argentina, and what rates they charged for lessons (in Argentina, Bent Larsen by far charged the highest). The restaurant was deserted, and Jorge struck up a conversation with the owner. Over shots of walnut and cranberry liqueur we discussed Putin and the upcoming presidential elections, until both Jorge and I had to return to the hotel in order to pack.

FEBRUARY 23 – GOING HOME

My last nerve-wracking experience in Moscow was trying to find out where the bus for the airport left from the hotel. The organizers, true to form, had posted the bus numbers and their times of departure, but didn’t say which hotel they would be leaving from, the Delta or the Gamma. The people at both hotels’ service desks didn’t have a clue, and none of the other Americans were there (I met them later at the terminal having learned that they had taken taxis instead), which only added to my anxiety.

Eventually I guessed that the bus would be leaving from the same hotel it had the arrived, the Delta, and met a couple of German players outside the lobby who were trying to find the bus as well. A van pulled up without any signs on its windows, and we had to proactively ask if he was going to the airport. The driver gestured yes, and it was only when we were seated inside the van for 10 minutes did an organizer (the same one who met me at the airport) show up to cross my name off a list. Only then did I know I was going home.

Have I mentioned how much I hate buses?

IF YOU GO

Prepare hard, and arrive warmed up and ready to go, because the players here will light you up like a Christmas tree. In terms of real strength, add about 100 points to their FIDE ratings to get some idea how strong they’d be in the United States. Most of the organizers and players speak a little English, but a little Russian here goes a long way.

I’ve said it many times to many people, and I’ll say it again: every chessplayer who wants to improve should have his or her head smashed in every 18 months. Such tournaments always make me want to be a better chessplayer. I was OK in the openings, but was repeatedly outplayed in the middlegame. The only way for me to get better in this phase of the game is to practice more, I guess.

Also, try to keep a sense of humor if your results go really south, and explore as much as Moscow as you can. Despite the radical cultural differences, this city has stuff worth seeing that is in the same league as London, Paris, and Rome, and is much more difficult to visit affordably without a package such as Aeroflot’s. It’s a bracing alternative to the US Amateur Team Championships in Parsippany.

Aeroflot Open (Part 2 of 3)
by Alex Cherniack

I would like to share with BCC members my games and impressions from the Aeroflot Open, a 9-round Swiss held in Moscow from February 13 to 23, 2008. I played in Section B with 134 players. I started well with 2 points out of 3, but then lost 5 games in row before salvaging a win in the last round – my report card is at www.aeroflotchess.com/results/b/SMWSite/players/p085.html. When I was there, the exchange rate was 24 rubles to the dollar. I will split up the headings in these postings according to each individual day of my trip from February 12 to 23.

FEBRUARY 16 – ROUND 4

My opening preparation went well against my Round 4 opponent from Armenia. This game made me glad I had brought a laptop to Moscow. I knew Hambardzumian liked the Panno Attack against the Saemisch, and was able to research this line in depth before the game started. If only I had been able to remember the line to the very end...

Alex Cherniack (2277) - Yuri Hambardzumian (2378)

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 O-O 6. Be3 Nc6 7. Nge2 a6 8. Qd2 Rb8 9. Rc1 Bd7 10. Nd1 Re8 11. Nf2 b5?!

Theory currently frowns on this move. Better is the flexible 11…e6.

12. c5 dxc5 13. Rxc5 e5 14. d5 Ne7



15.Nd3?

This move isn’t bad, but it is far from the best. As I was saying, had I been able to remember everything in my preparation, I would have played the simple 15.Qc2 c6 (15…Rc8 16.Nd3) 16.dxc6 Nxc6 17.Rxc6 Bxc6 18.Qxc6 with a large advantage for White in Graf-Nunn, Germany 2003. For some reason I didn’t like 18…Qa5+ 19.Nc3 b4, but then 20.Qa4 holds everything together.

15…c6 16. d6 Nc8 17. Nb4 Re6 18. Nxc6 Bxc6 19. Rxc6 Rxd6 20. Rxd6 Nxd6 21. Nc3 Qc7 22. Bd3 Rd8 23. Qe2 b4?

Drops a pawn. I was expecting 23…Nc4 24.Bxc4 Qxc4 25.Qxc4 bxc4 26.Ke2 with a small endgame advantage for White.

24. Na4 Nb5 25. Bxb5 axb5 26. Qxb5 Rb8 27. Qe2?

The first of many inaccuracies. Better was 27.Qa6 protecting the Knight on a4.

27… Nh5 28. g3 f5 29. O-O?

I was so anxious to castle that I lost my extra pawn. After 29.exf5 (I rejected it because I didn’t want to open up the diagonal for the Bishop on g7) gxf5 and then 30.0-0, Black’s combination in the game costs him his pawn on e5.

29… f4 30. Bf2

30.gxf4 exf4 gives Black full compensation for the pawn.

30…fxg3 31. hxg3 Nxg3 32. Bxg3 Qa7+ 33. Kg2 Qxa4

I still have a small edge, but my opponent neutralizes it with accurate defense.

34.Qc4+ Kh8 35. Qd5 Re8 36. Rc1 Qa6 37. Rc2 Qf6 38. Qc6 Qe7

Allowing the Queens to come off would lead to a losing ending for Black because of the weak e pawn and White’s passed pawn on the queenside.

39. Rd2 Rf8 40. Rd7 Qg5 41.Qc7 Qf6



42. Rd3?

This loses. I had to bail out with a draw after 42.Rxg7 Qxf3+ (42…Qxg7? 43.Bxe5) 43.Kh2 Qe2+ 44.Kh3 Qh5+ 45.Kg2 Qf3+ 46.Kh2. I felt obliged to win, and grossly overestimated my chances.

42…h5 43. Qd7 Qg5 44. a4 bxa3 45. bxa3 h4 46. Qh3 Qxg3+

I was so fixated with counterpinning the pawn on h4 that I overlooked the Queen on g5 could take the Bishop too!

47. Qxg3 hxg3 48. Kxg3 Kh7 49. a4 Ra8 50. Ra3 Bf8 51. Ra2 Bd6 52. Kf2 Kg7 53. Ke2 Kf6 54. Kd3 Ra5 55. Kc4 Rc5+ 56. Kb3 Ra5 57. Rg2 Ra6 58. Ra2 Bc5 59. Kc4 Bd4 60. a5



Otherwise Black simply brings up his King with an easy win.

60…Bb6! 0-1

White’s pawns are wiped out after 61.Kb5 Rxa5+ 62.Ra5 Bxa5 63.Kxa5 Kg5.

I was really annoyed, so I bundled up and charged out in 2 degree Fahrenheit weather to cool off, and also to see the Kremlin’s main tourist attractions: The Church of the Assumption, The State Armory, and The State Diamond Fund, at 300, 350, and 500 rubles respectively.







All were very impressive, but I have no interior pictures to share because photography was not allowed inside. On the outside, my hands became really cold because I kept taking off my gloves to take pictures, and the Russian coming out of my mouth was garbled because my face was so numb. My state of annoyance subsiding 5 hours later, I returned to the hotel. At the hotel cafe I had a cup of coffee, where I sat next to Mark Dvoretsky and Artur Yusupov. I saw Dvoretsky often the next couple of days talking to his students.

Because I had changed rooms, I had to register all over again. I picked up my new registration form before going back to my room. The bitter cold left me especially tired; when I closed on eyes on the bed for what I thought a few minutes, I opened them 3 hours later. Then I really went to sleep.

FEBRUARY 17 – ROUND 5

I was woken up at 2:00 AM by fireworks going off at Izmailovsky park, then drifted off to sleep again. This night I dreamed that the elevator was broken, and the stairs down to the street were covered in loose change. Each time I bent down to pick up a coin, all the change disappeared.

I was beginning to feel my rating. I got my Queen trapped by my Russian opponent on move 17, and had to resign 10 moves later. Save for one mistake, my Queen was never in any real danger! I remember “feeling” that it was well placed on h4 (an intuition backed up by Rybka), but didn’t back up my idea with hard calculation.

Artem Benza (2333) - Alex Cherniack (2277)

1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Ne4 5. Ne2 Ng5 6. Nxg5 Qxg5 7. d4 Qh4



Despite the result, I don’t think this move is so bad - it hits the center laterally, and inhibits White from playing f4. Other games have continued 7…Qd8 or 7…Qe7.

8. Be3 c5 9. c3 Nc6 10. a3 Bd7 11. b4 cxd4 12. cxd4 a5 13. b5 Ne7 14. Ng3 f6 15. exf6 gxf6!?

Provocative but still playable. 15…Qxf6 16.Nh5 Qf7 17.Bd3 Ng6, followed by Bd6 and 0-0 is also good for Black.

16. Nh5



16…Nf5??

This move though is a real turkey. After 16…Kd8, 17.Bf4 fails to 17…Be8. If Black wants to be adventurous, I can even play 16…Kf7 17.Bf4 Rg8 18.h3 Rg5.

17. Bf4!

Of course. I had only seen 17.g3 Nxe3 18.gxh4 Nxd1 19.Nxf6+ Ke7 20.Nxd7 Kxd7 21.Kxd1 Bg7 regaining the pawn. The rest is carnage.

17…Nxd4 18. g3 Nc2+ 19. Kd2 Qxf4+ 20. gxf4 Nxa1 21. Nxf6+ Ke7 22. Nxd7 Kxd7 23. Qxa1 Rg8 24. Bh3 Bg7 25. Qe1 Rge8 26. Qe3 Rac8 27. Rc1 1-0

I lost my elevator pass the day before, and had to get a new one. It was amazing how many documents were necessary to keep on my person and locate at a moment's notice. At home all I really need is a driver’s license – here I had to have a passport, departure slip, registration form, elevator pass, hotel room key, and subway card to truly get around. The manager on duty had to record the transaction of giving me a new elevator pass in two different ledgers. As I was walking away, I noticed that it had the wrong room number. So he had to white-out and mark the correction in each of the two ledgers.

It was only when I left the manager’s office that it hit me that I had spoken nothing but Russian to the hotel staff to receive the new pass, and the staff understood me just fine.

I needed to do laundry soon, and studied the prices at the hotel laundrymat. They wanted 400 rubles to clean a pair of jeans, and 110 rubles for each pair of underwear… yup, I was glad I had brought the Woolite.

That afternoon I went to the Treyakov art gallery, the largest collection of Russian art in the world. After exiting the metro station, I saw a line outside of a building and immediately jumped onto the end of it. Within a minute 10 people were in back of me. When the line snaked close enough to the building, I knew that I had made the right choice.



Entering the gallery was aggravating. This being the weekend, there were already so many people inside that no one could enter until someone else left. Photography wasn't allowed inside. I had to wear slippers. I couldn't check my knapsack at the coat check, and was directed to the baggage check. The guy at the baggage check was on a 15 minute break. I had to show my ticket to the coat check woman, the baggage check guy, the guard at the entrance of the stairway to the exhibit, and finally to the woman at the top of the stairs who ripped my ticket.

Once in, however, I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibits. I saw portraits of Russian artists who have been on the covers of books and albums I have read and listened to for years: Pushkin (artist - Orest Kiprensky), Tolstoi (Ivan Kramskoy), Dostoevsky (V.G. Perov), and Mussorsky (Ilya Repin, whose unforgettable painting Ivan The Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November, 1581 was also there - whenever I'm in danger of truly blowing my stack, I think of Ivan The Terrible's look of horrified remorse in his eyes). The gallery also had a half dozen works from my favorite maritime painter Aivazovsky, and Trinity, a classic icon by Andrey Rublev.

When I returned to the hotel I decided that my New Balance cross-trainer sneakers with the azure blue shoelaces were what was giving me away as a rube foreigner:



So I chose to wear only my understated black New Balance postman shoes on the street for the remainder of my stay. Now the only non-verbal cue that gave me away was the Moscow guide book my sister gave me for Christmas.

FEBRUARY 18 – ROUND 6

I tried to get a good night’s sleep the night before, but the boxing match between Sergei Lyakovich and the gigantic Nikolai Valyuev appeared on TV at 11:30 PM, and after a few rounds I felt obliged to watch the fight to the end (Valyuev won by unanimous decision). So my dreams were still in the twilight zone. I saw an abusive schoolteacher beating up a third grader – I was about to give her a piece of my mind when the alarm clock went off. Later that day I saw Valyuev on a subway poster dressed as a Roman centurion endorsing Olympia vodka.

My opponent this round was Sergei Yuferov, a Russian IM whose games date back to the mid 1960’s. Against 1.d4 he played the King’s Indian Defence, the Grunfeld, the Nimzo Indian, and the Slav. It was impossible to prepare in depth against him, so I basically played through the main variations of my prepared lines against those openings, and was ready for anything.

Alex Cherniack (2277) - Sergei Yuferov (2390)

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6 3. Nf3 g6 4. g3 Bg7 5. Bg2 O-O

Yuferov was the only opponent at the Aeroflot tournament to take me out of book. My preparation at home only covered 5...Bf5.

6. O-O Nc6 7. Nc3 Rb8 8. b3 a6 9. Bb2 b5 10. Ne1 Bd7 11. cxb5 axb5 12. Nc2 b4 13. Nd5 Nxd5 14. Bxd5 Na5 15. Qd2 c5 16. Ne3 e6 17. Bg2?!

With 20-20 hindsight I should have played 17.Bf3. At the board I didn’t like the idea of the Knight on a5 coming back to c6 and hitting it from the d4 square. Concretely though, I could have always played 18.Nc4 and 19.e3.



17…Bb5!

Logical and strong. Black threatens a pawn with 18…cxd4 19.Bxd4 Bxd4 20.Qxd4 Bxe2, and also a durable positional advantage with 18…c4. After a long think, I chose what I hoped was the lesser of all evils.

18. d5 e5 19. Rac1 f5 20. Rc2 Qe7 21. Nc4 Nxc4 22. bxc4 Ba4 23. Rcc1 Ra8 24. Ra1 Ra7 25. a3 b3?!

This move leaves a static target on b3, and lets me back into the game. A better try for the advantage seems to be 25…bxa3 26.Rxa3 Rfa8 27.Rfa1 Bb3. My c4 pawn would have remained very weak.

26. e4 f4 27. f3 h5 28. Bh3 Bd7 29. Bxd7 Qxd7 30. Kg2 Bh6 31. Qc3 Qa4 32. Rfd1 Rb7 33. Rd3 Kh7 34. Rb1 Rfb8 35. Ra1 Bg5 36. h4

The position on the board is roughly equal, but not the situation on the clocks. Faced with an unfamiliar opening I ate up a lot of time, and had at this point 10 minutes left to Yuferov’s 50. I avoided blitz chess when preparing for this tournament, a decision I regret because I screwed up 3 good positions in my games when my clock fell below 5 minutes. With these time controls, it’s hard to tell which speed is best to use for training: slow for the opening/middlegames and fast for the endgames?

36…Bh6 37. g4 hxg4

Otherwise the position becomes totally locked up, and a draw is inevitable.

38. fxg4 Qd7 39. Kf3 Bf8 40. Rd2 Be7 41. Rh2 Bd8 42. Rg1 Kg7 43. Qc1 Ba5 44. Ke2 Rf8 45. Rh3 Qd8 46. Rgh1 Qc8 47. Kf3

I wanted to transfer the King to d3 and plant the Queen on f3, but I really didn’t like 47.Qg2 f3 48.Rxf3 Rxf3 49.Qxf3 Rf7 and 50…Rf4.

47…Rh8 48. R1h2 Kg8 49. Qg1 Bd8 50. Qg2 Rbh7



51.g5?

At this point I had 3 minutes left, with 30 second increments, for the rest of the game - my opponent still had over half an hour. Objectively I should have played 51.Qf2 and made fast waiting moves until Black tried something aggressive, but the same Charge of the Light Brigade madness from my last game spilled over into this one. This is not the sort of position to "wing it" in time pressure!

51..Qa6 52. Qg4

It’s too late for 52.Qe2 Bxg5.

52…Re7 53. h5

Like lemmings over a cliff.

53…Qxc4 54. hxg6



As far as I could see, Black only had checks on d3, e3, and c2, and would be forced to give perpetual check. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that 48.R1h2 had left the back rank unprotected…

54…Qf1+

…and we’re done here.

0-1

Three goddamn losses in a row. These are the times when a chessplayer screams silently: IS THERE ANYTHING I DO WELL?!

It was Monday, and all the museums were closed. Despite a blizzard outside, I stomped through a literary walking tour recommended by my guide book. It took me past statues and residences of Gogol, Gorky, Yesenin, Chekhov, Pushkin, Mayakovsky, and Bulgakov. I got a huge kick out of visiting Patriarch Pond, the setting of the first chapter of Bulgakov’s classic novel The Master And Margarita.



I know this chapter especially well, because for many years I have tried in fits and starts to read the novel in Russian, and must have tackled understanding the beginning at least 5 times. The scene at Patriarch Pond is actually quite lucid compared to the rest of the novel; the Devil appears as Woland the magician in 1930s Moscow by a bench at the pond, and talks with two characters, Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomniy. After talking to Woland, Berlioz is run over by a trolleybus (and then, I think, wakes up in Yalta, and is eventually executed by the Devil in a netherworld festival in the last third of the book), while Ivan Bezdomniy ends up being thrown into an insane asylum. Then the plot really becomes weird.

Back at the hotel the transplanted ChessBase on my laptop started whining that the serial number wasn’t valid, a problem that only became worse the next couple of days.

(To be continued)

Aeroflot Open (Part 1 of 3)
by Alex Cherniack

(Photo by Iryna Zenyuk)

I would like to share with BCC members my games and impressions from the Aeroflot Open, a 9-round Swiss held in Moscow from February 13 to 23, 2008. Since 2002, the Aeroflot airline company has offered a package deal that includes the entry fee, airline ticket and hotel room.

The tournament was held at the Gamma-Delta hotel of the Izmailovsky hotel complex, and had 4 sections: A1 (FIDE 2500 and above), A2 (2400-2500), B (2200-2400), and C (below 2200). I played in Section B, which had 134 players. I started well with 2 points out of 3, but then lost 5 games in row before salvaging a win in the last round – my report card is at www.aeroflotchess.com/results/b/SMWSite/players/p085.html . Despite the result, I learned a lot from my losses, and had a great opportunity to explore Moscow, a world class city.

I was mostly on my own. Out of a field of 457, the only Americans at this tournament were Josh Friedel and David Pruess in the A2 Section, Iryna Zenyuk, Anton Solovyov and me in the B Section, and Michael Gerstein in the C Section. I met all of them over the next 10 days except Solovyov. When I was there, the exchange rate was 24 rubles to the dollar.

I was very excited to play in this tournament, because the last times I had been in Russia were in 1990, 1986, and 1985, when the country was still the Soviet Union, and I was very curious to find out how the country had changed. I had studied Russian in college, but don’t have the chance to practice it often, and at first it was comically bad. However it turned out to be very useful – despite all the hotel and city signs being in Russian and English, few of the Muscovites I talked to spoke English fluently. The Russian that initially came out of my mouth automatically received broken English replies, but the longer I stayed the more replies in Russian I received.

The rounds in Section B started at 9:30 AM, and had Budapest First Saturday time controls: 90 minutes for the entire game, with 30 seconds added after every move. Most of my games ended at 1:00 PM, which still left plenty of time to see the sights of Moscow. I will split up headings in these postings according to each individual day of my trip from February 12 to 23.

FEBRUARY 12 – AN EXHAUSTING DAY

I was scheduled to fly out of JFK airport on 8:20 that evening.

The organizing committee of the Aeroflot Open sucks at confirmation emails. I had to email them over a dozen times to make sure they had received my entry form, my entry fee (which is wired to a Swiss bank account), and my visa information in order to secure an invitation to enter Russia.

The process of receiving my airline ticket DROVE ME NUTS. They wouldn’t mail the ticket to me; I had to pick it up at either the Aeroflot office in Manhattan or at the airport. I chose the New York office. A week before I was scheduled to leave, I called the office to confirm that it was all right to pick up the ticket - they said they had no record of my name on any of the passenger lists. After a panicked email, the organizing committee replied 3 days later saying to call the office again, there should be no problem. I called the office again, and my name was now on the passenger list, but they said the ticket was not fully paid and would be canceled the day after tomorrow. Another antsy email exchange with the organizing committee; this time (2 days before I was supposed to leave) they sent me the confirmation code of the ticket purchase. I called the office again, and they said that I still had to pay taxes and airport fees at the office, but I could pick up the ticket. A breathed a sigh of relief, believing that everything was all set. Or so I thought.

On February 12 I woke up at home at 4:30 AM, took the first MBTA bus to Harvard Square, took the red line to South Station, and took the first Amtrak train to Penn Station at 6:05 AM, arriving in New York at 11:00 AM. To my great consternation, I couldn’t leave my bags at either a baggage check or a locker for security reasons, and had to lug my bags around New York for the rest of the day.

I went to Aeroflot’s office at Rockefeller Plaza to pick up my ticket, bringing with me all the emails to and from the organizing committee. The people at the office brusquely said that the ticket had been canceled due to lack of payment. I showed them my paperwork, and they disappeared behind the manager’s office, leaving me to sweat bullets. They reappeared 5 minutes later, and said the ticket had not been fully paid because of the taxes and airport fees. I said that I had no problem paying that, then they relented and issued me a new ticket – had that flight been full, I would have been SOL – and $220 dollars later at last I had a ticket to fly in and out of Moscow.

The flight didn’t leave for another 8 hours, so still schlepping my bags, I took a subway to Brooklyn to visit my 98 year old grandmother in a nursing home. 4 hours later I took the D line to Atlantic Avenue, transferred to the LIRR at Flatbush Avenue, and took the Air Train from Jamaica Station to the airport.

I ran into Iryna Zenyuk again at the airline terminal, having played her before in last year’s Foxwoods Open. Flight 316 had a lot of trouble getting out of JFK because of the weather; the boarding gate changed twice, the departure time was pushed back several times to 9:30 PM, and on the plane we were stuck on the runway an additional 90 minutes waiting for our turn to take off.

Finally, after 19 hours after waking up back home, I was on way to Moscow.

FEBRUARY 13 – AN EXHAUSTING DAY (CONTINUED)

The flight was 11 hours with no intermediate stops, and half empty. I slept fitfully for 3 hours and 2 hours, and arrived in Moscow at 4:30 PM local time. Once through passport control and customs, Iryna and I were immediately besieged with taxi drivers offering to take us to the hotel. We had been promised to be picked up from the airport, but no one from the organizing committee showed up for 15 minutes, so we were about to negotiate the fare to the hotel with one of the taxi drivers when at last a man showed up with the Aeroflot Chess Open logo on a placard.

He deposited Iryna and me in the center of the airport and told us not to wander off, as he going to pick up more players from other arrival gates. After an hour, there were about 40 chessplayers from over 10 countries occupying three rows of benches, and we were herded onto a bus going towards the Gamma-Delta hotel complex.















The chessplayers got off the bus at the hotel, and were herded once again to a registration desk in the Delta hotel with only 2 people trying to do the work of 10. They had to verify our identification, check us off 3 lists, issue us hotel reservation numbers, and give us directions to our respective hotels (the Gamma or the Delta). They gave me a reservation number, directions to the Gamma hotel, and instructions to show up at the opening ceremony on the third floor at 6:30.

It was 6:15, I was very tired, and couldn’t make the cognitive leap that the Gamma and Delta were two distinctly different hotels, even though their lobbies, service desks, and elevators looked identical. (Even after a few days of staying there I made the mistake of trying to go up the elevator to my room in the wrong hotel.)




















I wandered around the Delta hotel lobby and the cafes between the common areas for 15 minutes, until I said to hell with it, and went up to the opening ceremony will all my bags still in tow. At the ceremony I heard brief speeches by Anatoly Karpov and various tournament sponsors, then went back down to the first floor and finally found the service desk to the Gamma hotel around the corner.

It took me 10 minutes to get a clerk’s attention. Russians seem to view waiting behind others in short lines a quaint Anglo-Saxonism, and 5 people cut in front of me laterally. The clerk asked me for 10 rubles to pay for the state residential registration fee, and told me to pick up the registration form the following day. At this point the manager on duty came over and said that my room was scheduled for repair the day after tomorrow – I would have to register again when I changed rooms. I didn’t care, I so sick of carrying around my bags. The luggage dropped on the floor of my room with a thud, and I went back to the opening ceremony on the third floor.

The organizing committee had brought in dinner on 20 separate buffet tables, and a few cases of Moldavian wine. I ate to keep up my strength, and consumed my fill of the wine, which was delicious. I met Josh Friedel there, who was already in town having finished playing in the Moscow Open a few days before. I spent about an hour chatting with Josh and Iryna (who are good friends with each other), and left to wander around the hotel and figure out where the hell everything in the hotel really was.

I returned to my room at 9:00, and discovered why the room was scheduled for repair. The bedside lamps no working switches and the remote control for the TV didn’t work. But worst of all, none of the outlets had electricity. That made the laptop and voltage converter that I had brought with me useless for looking up my next round opponents with ChessBase.

I turned in, and was finally able to get to sleep at 1:00 in the morning.

FEBRUARY 14 – ROUND 1

I woke up tossing and turning 5 hours later, not yet on Moscow time. During my first few days there a strange brew fermented in my head. My brain was still trying to process a large swath of recently observed Russian culture quirks: the line-cutting, the general absence of the words “please,” “thank you,” “you’re welcome” and “excuse me” in everyday conversation, the way clerks ripped receipts the moment they handed them to me, and last but not least the Russian language itself. My native frame of mind (and the tongue inside of my mouth) was grinding with the gears of the Russian sentence structure, and I was struggling to transmit words to other people. Also, my toolkit was incomplete - the inability to use my laptop, if not fixed, was going to be a major inconvenience. I needed the laptop to look up opponents’ opening repertoires, but also to recharge my IPod (a psychic necessity) and back up pictures from my digital camera.

The hotel’s breakfast buffet was excellent - I ate there all 10 mornings of my stay - and wandered into my section’s tournament hall at 9:25 AM.





























The organizers provided free bottled water, Pepsi, and iced (white, green, and black) tea, but you had to grab yours fast because they were soon all gone. My first round opponent was Mihail Rodin, a 2375 FIDE rated player from Russia.

Mihail Rodin (2375) – Alex Cherniack (2277)

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 a6 4. Ngf3 c5 5. dxc5 Bxc5 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. O-O Nf6 8. c3 O-O

My opening preparation at home was 8…dxe4 9.Nxe4 Nxe4 10.Bxe4 Qxd1 11.Rxd1 Ke7 12.Bf4, but I didn’t like this at the board and decided to improvise.

9. e5 Nd7?

The shortcomings of this reply are shown up by White's 13th move. Better was 9...Ng4.

10. Nb3 Be7 11. Re1 f6 12. exf6 Bxf6

With the idea of 13.Re6? Nde5. But White has something better.

13. Nbd4! e5



The alternative was 13…Nde5, but I didn’t like one bit the positional sacrifice 14.Nxe5 Nxe5 15.Rxe5 Bxe5 16.Bxh7+ Kxh7 17.Qh5+ Kg8 18.Qxe5 Qf6 19.Nf3.

14. Ne6 Qe7 15.Nxf8 Nxf8

Or 14...Qf8 15.Ng5 g6 16.Qb3. I was hoping that the mobile pawn center would be enough compensation for the exchange, but my opponent soon makes it very immobile.

16. c4! d4 17. Nd2! Qf7 18. Ne4 Be7 19. Bd2 h6 20. a3 Be6 21. Rc1 Nd7 22. b4 Nb6

My pieces are well placed, but the exchange is the exchange.

23. b5 axb5 24. cxb5 Nb8 25. Rc7 N8d7 26. Bb4 Bxb4 27. axb4 Nd5 28.Rxb7 Ra2 29. Re2 Bg4



This allows a pretty finish, but Black’s position is past saving.

30. Rxa2! Bxd1 31. Ra8+ Nf8 32. Rxf7 Kxf7 33. Bc4 1-0

For the rest of the tournament, next round pairings were posted by 3:00 PM at the latest. With a nonfunctional laptop, however, that was precious little help to me.

I decided to head out to Red Square.















The weather in Moscow was generally no worse than Boston. With long johns, a jacket, 2 layers of Gore-Tex, a hat, wool socks, and thick gloves, I was fine. I also had brought along a balaclava and a 4th layer of clothing, but I never needed to use them. Still disconnected and not fully caught up on sleep, I had a vague idea of finding a 110V/220V converter for my hotel room on Tverskaya Ulitsa. (I had no idea of knowing yet if the laptop was not working properly because of the outlet, or because of the voltage converter.)

I had no luck finding the converter, but I had an unforgettable cultural experience – the Moscow metro during rush hour. Oh my God, I was afraid of being trampled to death!






























Whenever I stopped to get my bearings, I was in the way of hundreds. What a propulsive, broken-dam mass of people; crowds 10 wide funneled into escalators 2 wide, and those who found themselves in the left lane were gravitationally forced to walk, if not trot, all the steps of escalator. At first I didn’t understand why Muscovites were in such a hurry to race towards the next train when another arrived 60 seconds later. Then I realized that the next train was just as crowded, and they just wanted to get it over with by riding the riptide from point A to point B. The knapsack I wore on my back was really in the way, so I took it off and held it while I was on the packed train.

I went to Kitai-Gorod that night, but couldn’t find any Chinese restaurants, so I found a soup and salad place in that neighborhood that had English signs, ate there, and went back to my hotel room.

FEBRUARY 15 – ROUNDS 2 AND 3

Today was unusual in the tournament schedule in that there were two rounds at 9:30 and 15:30.

I woke up at 3:00 AM replaying over and over in my mind an alternate continuation from my game yesterday (8…dxe4 9. Nxe4 Nxe4 10. Bxe4 Qxd1 11. Rxd1 Ke7 12. Bf4, instead of 8…0-0). Or was it the other way around?



No matter how many times I sliced and diced this position, White was just better.

I went back to sleep, and had a shallow, pounding dream in that every time I made a move from my game in round 1 I had to unpack, inventory the contents, and repack my suitcase.

I had a lot of loose cash on me, so just before the start of round 2 I went to the manager on duty and asked to put it in the safe. The manager wanted 100 rubles a day to store it there, so I politely declined and walked out.

I won my round 2 game against Erkin Gurbanzade from Azerbaijan, and evened the score:

Alex Cherniack (2277) - Erkin Gurbanzade (2192)

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 O-O 6. Be3 Nbd7 7. Nh3 c5 8. d5 Ne5 9. Nf2 Qa5 10. Be2 h5

Black is going to have to beat a retreat with the Knight, as 10…Qb4 11.a3 Qxb2? 12.Na4 loses the Queen.

11. h3 a6 12. f4 Ned7 13. a4 Re8 14. O-O e6 15. dxe6 Rxe6

Black’s position looks ugly, but I have been burned in many ugly positions before!

16. Qc2 Nb8



17. e5!

A positional necessity; otherwise Black brings the Knight back into game with Nc6-d4 with good play. This pawn sweep is thematic in Benoni structures and in King’s Indian positions where White takes on e6 and Black recaptures with the Bishop.

17…Ne8

If 17…dxe5, then 18.f5! gxf5 19.Qxf5 (exploiting the pin on e6) Nc6 20. Nge4, exploiting the pin on f6.

18. Nfe4 Nc6 19. Nd5 dxe5 20. f5 gxf5 21. Rxf5 Rg6 22. Rxh5 Be6 23. Rf1



Black’s position is very difficult, if not lost.

23…Bxd5 24. cxd5 Nb4 25. Qc4

Less good is 25.Qxc5 Qxc5 26.Bxc5 Nxd5.

25…Nc7 26. d6 Ne6 27. Nxc5 Rc8 28.d7 Rc6 29. Nxe6 Rxc4 30. d8=Q+ Qxd8 31. Nxd8 Re4 32. Rf3 Nd5 33. Bd3 Rxe3 34.Rxe3 Nxe3 35. Bxg6 fxg6 36. Rg5 Nc4 37. b3 Nd2 38. Rxg6 Kh7 39. Rb6 e4 40. Ne6 Bh6 41. Kf2 e3+ 42. Ke2 Ne4 43. h4 Ng3+ 44. Ke1 Kg6 45. Ng5+ Kh5 46. Nf3 Bg7 47. Ng1 Bc3+ 48. Kd1 Kxh4 49. Ne2 Ba5 50. Rxb7

The pawn wasn’t going anywhere.

1-0

Right after this game I went to the service desk, and moved to my new hotel room. The new room was on a floor where half the rooms were being repaired, and for the rest of my stay I walked to and from my room on a corridor covered in drop cloths. I didn’t care, as this room had working electrical outlets, and I could finally prepare properly for my next opponent from Lithuania.

Emilis Pilectis (2364) - Alex Cherniack (2277)

1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Bg5 dxc4 6. Qa4+ Nc6 7. e3?!

White is mixing ideas from 5.Bg5, 5.Qa4 and 5.a3, with dubious results. Better is 7.a3 Bxc3+ 8.bxc3 Qd5 9.Bxf6 gxf6 10.Qc2 f5 11.g3 with an unclear game.

7…Bd7 8.Qc2 b5 9. a3 Ba5 10. Ne5 Qc8 11. Bxf6 gxf6 12. Nxd7 Qxd7 13. O-O-O Ne7 14. Ne4 Nd5 15. b3 cxb3 16. Qxb3



16…c6?

Consistent with my previous moves was 16…Qc6+ 17.Kb1 Rb8 18.a4 a6 19.Rc1 Qb6, with a tense game where I have excellent chances of holding onto the extra pawn. I thought the resulting ending would be better for Black.

17. Qxd5 exd5 18. Nxf6+ Ke7 19. Nxd7 Kxd7 20. Kb2 Bc7

I saw this position as far back as move 13, and evaluated it as better for Black because of White's vulnerable King. This worked in the end, though not without help from my opponent - Black's King turned out to vulnerable as well.

21. Bd3 Bd6 22. Rc1 h6 23. e4 Rab8

I can’t defend the c6 pawn with Rc8 because of 24.Bf5+.

24. e5?

Now my decision is vindicated. Much better is 24.exd5 cxd5 25.Bf5+ Ke7 26.Rc6 Rfd8 27.h4, and all the winning chances are White’s.

24…Be7 25. Rc2 Rb6 26. Rhc1 Rhb8



This is what I envisioned over 10 moves ago. The advance of the a and b pawns will be very dangerous for White. His pawn on d4 is also weak.

27.f4 Ra6 28. Rc3 Rbb6 29. f5 Ra4?

I overlooked White’s counterplay. 29…b4 would have won immediately (30.axb4 Bxb4 31.Rb3 Ba3+).

30. f6

Not 30.Rxc6? Rxc6 31.Bb5 Ba3+.

30…Bf8 31. Bf5+ Kc7 32. Rg3

I saw what White was up to (33.Rg7). Fortunately I have an answer.

32…Rxd4 33. Rg7 Bxg7

Otherwise the passed e and f pawns are irresistible.

34. fxg7 Rb8 35. e6!

35.Bh7? Rg4 36.g8=Q Rgxg8 37.Bxg8 Rxg8 wins easily for Black.

35…fxe6 36. Bxe6 Kd6!

If it weren’t for this move my c pawn would be pinned on the 39th.

37. g8=Q Rxg8 38. Bxg8 Rg4 39. Bxd5

It’s hard to blame White for rejecting 39.Bh7 Rxg2+ 40.Rc2 Rxc2+ 41.Kxc2, since Black’s pawns look unstoppable. However the Rook ending is utterly hopeless.

39… Kxd5 40. g3 Re4 41. h4 Re2+ 42. Kc3 Re3+ 43. Kb4 Rxg3 44. Rc5+ Kd6 45. Rh5 Rg4+ 46. Kb3 Rg6 47. Kb4 Rf6 48. a4 Rf4+ 49. Kb3 Rxa4 50. Rxh6+ Kc5 51. Rh5+ Kb6 0-1

I didn’t step foot out of the hotel at all that day. Sad to say, this game was to be the high point of my tournament.

(To be continued)

Vijayawada girl draws miniature chessboard

Newindpress on Sunday
SOUTHERN NEWS - ANDHRA PRADESH Wednesday February 27 2008 07:36 IST

VIJAYAWADA: Nadipalli Geetika, a Biotechnology student of Loyola College, has drawn a 0.25 cm miniature chessboard to create a world record. A microscope is needed to see the chessboard.

Daughter of N Ravikumar and Rajani, both drawing teachers, Geetika is a painter. She has won as many as 50 prizes for her paintings. Her painting on conservation of water fetched Geetika Super Kid award. Speaking at a media conference after drawing the miniature chessboard here on Tuesday, Geetika said her aim was to create a world record in miniature drawings. Earlier, Geetalakshmi, a teacher of Nellore, drew chessboard of 0.4 cm and two boys of Tenali got the credit drawing 64 squares in 0.7 cm.