More on Jacqueline Piatigorsky [UPDATED]

I spent some time this evening looking through Edward Winter's Chess Notes to see if he had published anything on Spassky's vodka story or if he had anything on the details of the contracts for the publication of the tournament book for the Second Piatigorsky Cup. Sadly, he had nothing on either, as best I can determine.

However, being Edward Winter's Chess Notes, the site has vast amounts of interesting stories. Of the items that caught my eye this time, he has a long series of items on Jacqueline and Gregor Piatigorsky, including some outtakes from her autobiography. I probably will not find what I'm looking for in that book, but I will try anyway.

Second, and unrelated to anything else, I found his glowing review of Alexander Alekhine’s Chess Games, 1902-1946 by Leonard M. Skinner and Robert G.P. Verhoeven (McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, 1998). The book is large and expensive, so sadly I won't be buying it anytime soon. But this line from Winter made me laugh:

There are over two hundred French Defence games, and the database buccaneers will not be slow to plunder the book’s treasures.

UPDATE: Jacqueline Piatigorsky's memoir arrived. Jump in the Waves has a chapter devoted to chess promotion, but that includes a wide range of activities, including various chess-in-the-schools programs. So I did not learn anything about the nature of the contracts for the Second Piatigorsky Tournament book.

I have not read the entire book, yet, but will soon. The memoir is short, and perusing a few random chapters it seems well-written and interesting. How many people do you know of that were raised in one of Talleyrand's old palaces?

Spassky Quotes, and a Dash of Dvoretsky's Wisdom

Today I came across a memorable quote from Spassky. It contains easily remembered maxims about a certain kind of middle game, and I will return to it shortly.

The quote reminded my of the following. In the Introduction to Mikhail Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy, the author recounts the following:

Dvoryetsky considers it essential to know the classics, to analyze complicated practical rather than theoretical endings, and to find general rules and principles of play in complex endings. And in theoretical endings it is sufficient to know whether the ending is won or drawn, and to have a rough impression of the plan of play.

I find these sentences striking for their utility - they lay out a straightforward guide to endgame study. The very last sentence has been updated somewhat in Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. In time he seemed to believe precise positions did need to be known, though hardly an endless amount. The reason why is obvious: adjournments disappeared in the computer era. One can no longer look at a reference manual after five hours of play, the knowledge has to be "at your mental finger tips" during the game or it's useless. However he still believed in knowing general rules, including such things as whether an ending is actually won or drawn, as a guide for approaching endings.

And the first sentence can almost be generalized to include Dvoretsky's methods of training in middle games as well, from what I have seen and understand of his work. (Dvoretsky adds substantial psychological work to his training methods as well.)

Which gets me back to Spassky's quote, which concerns hanging pawns.

The shortcoming of hanging pawns is that they present a convenient target for attack. As the exchange of men proceeds, their potential strength lessens and during the endgame they turn out, as a rule, to be weak.

The power of hanging pawns is based precisely in their mobility, in their ability to create acute situations instantly.*

To get the most out of this, one really needs to study examples, that much is clear. But the truth is that most of use don't really study that much, either because of time constraints or because we prefer play to study.

But knowing the maxims can still help! They guide thoughts and planning, providing a useful shortcut even if you haven't worked through dozens of examples. Knowing general rules and principles, including a "rough impression of play", helps. And Spassky's rules on hanging pawns are particularly good. Why? Because they give more explanation than the quotes I recall seeing in the past, which usually state that hanging pawns are strong when they are mobile and weak when they are pinned down.

Okay, but WHY are they strong when mobile? Here Spassky is helpful: Their mobility allows them "to create acute situations instantly" by advancing! So if the pawns can move, the side with the pawns can create a crisis at the time of his choosing. The opponent must step carefully to avoid getting blasted on every move. Now THAT makes sense. Better still, Spassky's quote is shorter than the explanation I just gave. Perfect!

And how do hanging pawns become weak? The long winded explanation is that first, hanging pawns provide an easily defined target for the enemy. "What should I do? Oh, I'll attack Those Hanging pawns Over There!"** Second, as pieces are exchanged, the ability of the pawns to create an immediate crisis goes down - fewer pieces reduces the chances of the pieces "tripping over each other" and means fewer calculations for the opponent. And finally, in an endgame the possession of hanging pawns likely means having one more pawn island than the opponent, and that is generally a bad thing. Spassky's quote is, again, pithier.

Implied in all of this is that positions with hanging pawns require a lot of calculation all the time, especially if you haven't studied them much beforehand. If you don't like endless calculations, perhaps avoid openings where hanging pawns may occur.

So these maxims, longer than the old advice about hanging pawns, aren't that much longer, are still easy to remember, and tell you why the hanging pawns are strong or weak in specific terms. Commit them to memory, and make use of them soon.

* I have broken the quote into two parts to be more easily remembered. More can be read about the source in the previous post.

** THOTs can kill, people. Avoid THOTs unless you want to live on the wild side.

The Second Piatigorsky Cup, and Sourcing Spassky

[WARNING: This post is long and rambling. But now that I've written it I'm going to post it.]

In the post that will follow this one I feature a couple of quotes by Spassky that I came across online today. The problem with the quotes is that the online sources did not tell me the original source.

So I tried to remember which books Spassky had written, with some help from Amazon. I knew that Spassky hadn't written many books, mostly contributions to a few opening surveys. But I thought that he may have contributed to a book called How to Open a Chess Game, which had seven co-authors. I had to look this up on Amazon because I don't own a copy, to my regret. Spassky had not contributed to that book.

A Spassky Story: When did this happen?

I was looking at Boris Spassky quotes earlier today (another post will follow with the why), and came across the following anecdote, which I traced to a ChessBase article about the 2008 M-TEL Tournament.

Some positive news came from Sofia with the arrival of Boris Spassky. The legendary GM went straight into the commentary studio and started to entertain the public. “The best tournament that I have ever played in was in 1950”, he said. “It was great – a waiter came to you during the game, and you could order anything you wanted to drink (even some vodka, if you liked). Pity, there are no longer tournaments organized in this manner…” – ”But didn't anyone protest against this?” asked someone in the public. “Oh, yes, and it was the strongest player of the event, Vasily Smislov.” Spassky kept on pleasing the audience with his colorful memories, excellent chess and witty remarks with short pauses.

I had mis-remembered Spassky's birth year, thinking he had been born in 1939 or 1940, so I wondered about that. Surely a ten or eleven year-old wasn't ordering vodka? Of course, re-reading it, he doesn't claim he had vodka, but still I looked it up, and he was born January 30, 1937. But still!

So I looked in my database, and the earliest game I found between Spassky and Smyslov (a reasonable but not fool-proof way of finding tournaments they both played in) showed that they most likely first met in a tournament held in Bucharest, in 1953. That was the tournament in which Spassky earned his IM title, and at the age of 16 organizers might have even been comfortable offering him vodka. (I have no idea what the customs were in the Soviet Union, from which Spassky hailed, or in Romania, where the tournament was held.) All the other tournaments they played in during the 1950s were much to formal for this to have occurred: everything from Soviet Team Tournaments to a Candidates Tournament. Most of the rest of the tournaments they played in together through the years also seem to meet that condition. Even the 1962 Capablanca Memorial in Cuba was likely too serious for that.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone else might have any ideas about when this tournament may have taken place. I can't find anything else about the conditions of the Bucharest tournament, which was VERY strong. I guess I'll try Edward Winter's site.

PS One site I saw listed the tournament participants and the national flags for some of them. Weirdly, it gave the CURRENT national flags. So Petrosian, for example, is listed as being from Armenia. Armenia was never an independent country during his lifetime, and he should have been shown with a Soviet flag.      / pedantry

A Gary Sanders Story

The Autumn edition of Florida Chess (the Florida Chess Association quarterly publication) contained a couple of articles about the death of Gary Sanders, who was the state chess champion on several occasions. I though I'd share the only story of Mr. Sanders I have.

Back in 1986 or 1987, I played in a tournament at the old Sheraton-Twin Towers Hotel. These days the hotel is known as the Doubletree By Hilton at the Entrance to Universal Orlando and sits across of Universal Studios Orlando. Back then, it looked like this



and sat across Kirkman Road from a vast empty lot - which explains why it went into bankruptcy.

The tournament was most likely either the Region IV Championships held in June of 1986 or the $6,000 Southern Open held in January of 1987. It didn't occur to my 18 year-old self that I might be interested in the locations of these tournaments over 30 years later, or perhaps I just assumed I would remember.

It was probably the $6,000 Southern Open. I say that because the vast prize fund attracted not one but TWO internationally titled players to the region. And before you laugh at the vast sum comment, realize that $6,000 would translate into roughly $13,300 dollars today, which is in line with the $15,000 guaranteed that the Continental Chess Association is offering the 16th annual Southern Class Championships in March, and that will attract more than two internationally titled players! (To be fair, there are a lot more internationally titled players now than there were then, and many live here. Back then it was only a mostly-retired Arnold Denker.)

If my old Chess Life Magazines were more easily accessible, I'd dig them out and confirm which tournament it was.

The two titled players were IM Boris Kogan out of Georgia, and GM Roman Dzindzichashvili, out of a different Georgia entirely. Meeting them on the field of honor, as some dead players from the Nineteenth Century might put it, were many of Florida's strongest players, including Gary Sanders.

I'm fairly certain that Sanders was the highest rated actual Floridian at that time. Perhaps someone else can confirm this. Maybe Miles Ardaman was as strong. But if not the strongest player in the state, Sanders was certainly close to it. And there I saw him put on quite a show in speed chess.

Between rounds he had set up shop at a table either in or near the main playing hall, and had started playing speed chess against whoever wanted to play him. Eventually he was trashing other masters while giving time odds of five-minutes-to-three-minutes, and eventually five-to-two. Remember, this is with the old mechanical clocks, with actual hanging flags and everything, no increment, no delay, and no pretense of precision in those last few second. It was quite a sight to watch as a 1600 rated 18 year-old.

At some point this action caught the eye of Roman Dzindzichashvili. Dzindzi was a fantastic speed player, and I have read that he was also a gambling man. So naturally, he sat down to play Sanders. As I recall Dzindzi was giving Sanders time odds of either five-to-three or even five-to-two. And off they went! The rumor in the playing hall the next day was that the two of them stayed up all night playing blitz games, quite likely for money. I never heard who came out ahead, nor can I even confirm that the all-nighter took place. But lots of people in the playing hall believed it! And I can still see Dzindzi hunched over the board in his black leather jacket facing off against the immensity that was Gary Sanders.

Now I'm wondering if anyone else that was there can remember any of this, and perhaps confirm some of the rumored late night activities.

Testing the Test

Today I stumbled across the website Elometer.net. Here's how they sum it up:

Dear chess friend,

we kindly invite you to the Elometer if you are interested in a quick measurement of your chess skills!

To obtain a psychometrically founded estimate of your playing strength based on a comparison sample of previous participants, all you have to do is to solve the following 76 chess problems.

...

In all of the following positions, you are playing White, and White is to move. Note, however, that the best move is not necessarily a brilliant one. Some of the following positions are rather simple, but some are very tough. Just try to choose the move you would play in a real game, and refrain from only trying to find a combination; this will yield the most precise estimate of your Elo rating.

The Elometer is part of a research project conducted by Birk Diedenhofen and Jochen Musch from the University of Duesseldorf, Institute of Experimental Psychology, Germany.

It took me a couple of hours to get through the test, but that was with stops due to supervising a 7 year-old. I would recommend doing it on a desktop computer instead of a tablet (as I did) or a phone, as that will minimize finger slips.

How'd I do? They estimated my rating at 2200 with a 95% confidence interval of about 2065 to 2330. Oops! Well, it isn't 100% confidence, is it? The format of the test also kept me from my usual errors of transposing moves and dropping random pieces, so I know where the 400 point difference is, alas.

Also of interest in a 48 position endgame test. All you have to do is state if White, with the move, can force a win in the given positions. I got 39 of 48 correct. Give them a try, and let me know how you did in the comments. The endgame tests include lots of basic stuff as well as more advanced material, such as the famous Cohn-Rubinstein ending from the St. Petersburg tournament of 1909, and Euwe's famous 1940 study of the pawn skeleton from the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation. (Yes, I recognized both of those without having to look them up, although I did need to double check dates.)

I found the endgame studies interesting enough to enter them into a ChessBase database for further testing in the future. Aiming for no less than 48 out of 48.

The Clermont Variation of the Scandanavian Defense

We're putting in a claim on an opening variation.

After 1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Qxd5 3 Nc3 Qd6 4 d4 Nf6 5 Nc3 g6 6 g3 Bg7 7 Bg2 Qa6 8 Bf4 0-0!

after 8 ... 0-0!N

We hereby dub thee the Clermont Variation, now and for eternity!

Paul is the discoverer of this variation, and perhaps he will post more on it later. For now we will keep our ammunition dry, however. Try it - if you dare!