A nasty problem

I was browsing through my copy of Karsten Muller & Frank Lamprecht's Fundamental Chess Endings a couple of days ago and opened it up to the following exercise, which they give ***** ("extremely difficult"):

V. Halberstadt, 1938

White to play and win

4N3/3nP3/1k6/8/1K6/8/8/8 w - - 0 1

The solution in the back identifies this as a study by V. Halberstadt, and that it shared the first & second prize in 1938 in Gros. No idea what Gros was or is, possibly a magazine? Anyhow, I found it to be an entertaining puzzle, and while I eventually worked out what the first move had to be, I couldn't work my way to the solution.

I'll post the solution in a week or so*. In the meantime, happy hunting!

* A reasonably good program should find the answer quickly, for those that can't wait.

Books still have their uses

I was looking through a copy of Informant* #9 covering the first half of 1970 yesterday and I found a neat little problem in the Combinations section, which I decided to post here.

So I hit my version of ChessBase and start looking for the game I. Zajcev - Storosenko, SSSR, 1970. The only problem is that I can't find a record of any such game or any such players. I looked for alternate spellings and searched by position, but it simply isn't in there. I imagine it was a game between a couple of amateurs that happened to catch someone's attention, got published in some Soviet magazine/paper/book, and from there found its way to the Yugoslav authors of the Informants. Thus paper not only beats rock, it also beats electronic database.

Here's the position:

I. Zajcev - Storosenko, SSSR

r1bq1r2/pppp1p2/k1n5/3NP3/6Q1/n1N5/P4PPP/2KR3R w - - 0 1

I'll put the solution, as provided by M. Judovic of Informator, in the comments.

*That's Sahovski Informator to you, Bub!

Suggestion Box

This is one for the members.

Does anyone have any general suggestions about the blog? I'm particularly interested in feedback about the formatting and layout, and also suggestions for any websites you would like to see added to the links section over there  ----->

You can either email me with suggestions directly, or put them in the comments.

Regards,
Todd

We have a blog! (Why'd we do that again?!)

Welcome to the blog of the Clermont Chess Club. This blog has been set up for a few different reasons.

The primary reason is to provide an online presence for club members to opine and discuss matters pertaining to chess and the club, and to do so in a manner that is more easily searched and indexed than the Club's Facebook account. Facebook simply does not allow for easy searches on past material, and I think that's a shame given some of the games and analyses that have been published there.

The secondary reason is Blogger will allow for much more formatting than Facebook. The worst thing about being on Facebook, for me, is that complete inability to use HTML code. Grrr.

The tertiary (and admittedly personal) reason is that I've been wanting a chess blog of my own for a few months now, just to collect my own opinions and mental meanderings on the game. May as well put it out there for ridicule from my fellow club members as well as the public at large!

...

So, that's the why. Now for some more specifics about the what.

At the moment I (Todd Durham) am the only poster here. I expect and hope that will change soon. In the meantime, I will add content as I find the time and the interest. I've already put up a few posts before taking the blog "live". Unfortunately, I am still trying to figure out how to post games - specifically games that can be replayed live online. I can post games in PGN format, and I can even post diagrams and analysis, but I haven't yet figured out a good way to post games in a replayable manner. I suspect that one of the other members will not have this problem, as he has a much more recent version of ChessBase, but we'll see. In the meantime I will plod along as best I can.

I've got ideas for certain recurring features.

First would be a "From the Archives" series, in which I would pull games & analyses from the various books, magazines and other material I own, with an eye towards checking the older material against the silicon beasts, and seeing how opinions have changed over time. First up will probably be the second match game from the Petrosian-Fischer Candidates Match in 1971, which famously ended Fischer's 20/19/13 game winning streak.

Second would be a feature called "Dumpster Diving" which will consist of positions I find amusing from my own collection of games, especially all the garbage online games I've played through the years. The title gives it away: don't expect high-quality (or any-quality) chess there!

A third likely feature would be "Games from the Clubhouse", which is exactly what it sounds like. Occasionally we manage to play a game or two with some interesting positions, and hey, this is our blog.

And, of course, I'm hoping and expecting some posts from other club members.

But don't expect any of these features or other posts to be regular. I would like to see a constant flow of content on these pages, but ultimately this is a side project for all concerned.

That's all for now. Hopefully this will be an enjoyable project for all of us!

Rules for posting

Rules for posting and commenting on the Clermont Chess Club Blog are simple.

First, keep the language clean. This is not the place for describing the anatomy of the man from Nantucket.

Second, don't be a jerk. Arguments are fine, so long as people are civil towards one another.

Third, please keep discussions focused on chess or club matters. This one isn't strict, but should be kept in mind.

Fourth, please don't bring up controversial topics, such as religion, politics, the weather, or exactly what should be done about the Kardashian problem.

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Anyone can comment, so long as they have an account with Google or Discus or whatever. I don't mind commenters using handles, or even posting anonymously, but simply posting as "anonymous" will not be tolerated as it becomes confusing. Pick a handle and stick with it.

Any club member in good standing (whatever we decide that means) can also post here so long as they observe the rules currently in effect. To do so I will have to add you to a list, and to do THAT you must set up an account with Google. I'd recommend setting up a separate Gmail account for that purpose, but you can use whichever email account you like. As with other commenters, you do not need to use your actual name, although I will need to know who you are and it would be good manners to let other club members know your handle. I will be happy to show any potential posters what you need to do to create blog posts. More on that in a separate post.

A Note on Plagarism

Anyone that's kicked around the online chess community for some time has most likely come across discussions of plagiary in the online (and offline) chess community. Plagiary has consisted of everything from lifting a few words, to claiming credit for pictures taken by someone else, to wholesale theft.

Our position is this: We will not knowingly plagiarize anything. If we do so inadvertently, please contact the blog and we will add references as necessary, or remove the offending content entirely. The easiest way to do this will be by leaving a comment, explaining what has been lifted, who credit belongs to, and some proof of same. Fair use rules do apply, however.


Still, bring any such matters to our attention and we will try to correct them.

Who we are.

Taken from the Club's Facebook page:

The Clermont Chess Club (under the auspices of the Clermont Recreation Club) meets at the Kehlor Building on 466 W. Minneola Avenue in downtown Clermont.

The Chess Club meets on Thursdays from 6-10pm and on Saturdays from 2-7pm. Players of all ages and levels are welcome, and we are always happy to teach new players who want to learn!

Even Anish Giri ...

... the most boring player in the world, gets tired of Rook & pawn endgames.

Screen capture from Chess24.com

(That's from near the end of the round 5.2 game against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.)

Hero of Day One at the World Cup

This one is a bit late. But during the first day of the first round, Ugandan IM Arhur Ssegwanyi (ELO 2357) drew Dutch GM Anish Giri (ELO 2793) in 158 moves! Giri had an advantage of a pawn through a great deal of it, but Ssegwanyi played tough defense, and the game was drawn when they reached bare kings. PGN below the fold.

Anatoly Karpov: A Better World Champion!

Now for an opinion that is guaranteed to be somewhat more controversial amongst chess players: Anatoly Karpov was the best world champion the chess world had prior to the advent of Kasparov.

I'm just going to list a few of Karpov's pluses for now.

First, he played the game as champion, and played often and well! Since Botvinnik had become champion in 1948, it seemed that champions didn't play all that much.* (Anyone that wants to spend time database mining can refute or confirm this, but I'll pass for now.) But Karpov, no doubt in part because of the fact that he was awarded the title simply because Fischer refused to play, took up a busy tournament schedule - and he won most of them during his reign.

Second, he successfully defended his title in matches! This might not seem like such a big deal, but consider the record of previous champions. I'll ignore Steinitz, as he basically invented the title and later tried backdating it. But Lasker mostly managed to duck his most dangerous opponents until he was older. The great Capablanca** failed in his only title defense. Alekhine ducked Capablanca, beat up on Bogoljubov twice before falling to Max Euwe in a massive upset. Euwe failed in a rematch with Alekhine, who then ducked any more matches until he was dead. (True, he got a big assist from WWII....)

Botvinnik never won a match when he was defending his title. The best he managed was two drawn matches against Bronstein and Smyslov. Smyslov & Tal couldn't defend the title against an old Botvinnik. Petrosian, in 1966, did what no champion had done in 32 years when he defended his title against Spassky. But he then fell to Spassky, who failed in his first defense to Fischer. And Fischer lost to his inner demons and couldn't even get back to the board for 20 years.

So Karpov showing up and defending his title twice om 1978 and 1981 was a damned fine showing.

Karpov showed up often, played well, and won much. And, he was part of the two greatest rivalries in the history of the game - his feuds with Korchnoi and Kasparov are legendary. In essence, Karpov played 74 games for the World Championship three times against Korchnoi over a period of seven years, and played Kasparov an incredible 144 times in five matches over six years. The only thing that comes close in the entire history of the game would be the La Bourdonnais – McDonnell  matches, but that series can 85 games in 1834 doesn't truly compare to the modern matches.

Thus a more controversial argument for people to argue with, both with facts & opinions. Have at it!



* Botvinnik didn't play hardly at all after winning the title, but after his close call in his defense against Bronstein in 1951 started playing more. We probably can't blame Smyslov or Tal for not playing much, as they held the title for only about a year each, and were busy preparing for the return match against Botvinnik. Still, the impression remains that world champion sightings at the board were somewhat rare until Karpov's reign.

** Is it possible to write about Capablanca without using the phrasing "the great Capablanca" at least once?

Bobby Fischer: Worst World Champion in the History of the Game

With all the hoopla surrounding the upcoming release of the movie Pawn Sacrifice (starring Tobey Maguire, who looks nothing at all like Fischer), I feel I may as well share my opinion that Bobby Fischer was the worst champion in the history of Chess.

Instead of going into great detail about it, I will restrict myself to two salient points.

First, as champion, he played ZERO games of chess. Fischer even surpassed Botvinnik who barely played at all in the years following his own title win, and at least Botvinnik showed up to play his duly appointed Challenger. Instead, with Fischer, we got years of drama, and no chess at all for 20 years. He then came out of retirement claiming to still be the champion, in order to cash in against Boris Spassky - again.

Second, Fischer's antics away from the board were appalling and couldn't help but taint the rest of us by association. Not completely, of course, but he certainly reinforced the stereotype that chess players are crazy. Thanks, Bobby!

I doubt this is a controversial opinion these days, and that's just sad.