Never surrender!

If You ever lose all hope,just remember this Knight on h8
You can die there,Or maybe Fight n become a hero! #FightOn pic.twitter.com/3yRnr3JJGd

— Rakesh Kulkarni (@itherocky) September 11, 2016

Jim wins again, and inspiration for a bitter ender.

Jim McTigue won again today. It was a very smooth victory. As an interested observer I was also much happier with his time management today. That's steadily been getting better, and I think he's now finally settled in. Unfortunately, the team lost 1.5-2.5 again, and again at one point they were poised to do a little better. C'est la vie.

Tomorrow the Virgin Island team is paired against Djibouti, and I expect them to win. Djibouti had problems with their travel arrangements (many of the African countries did), and wasn't able to play until Round Six. (Hopefully they didn't miss the Bermuda Party, too.) Djibouti only has three players on their team, so they will be starting down one point to start the match. Of their three players, only one is rated - the second board sports a 1502 FIDE. Hopefully "our" guys will crash through to a good match victory tomorrow.

...

In other news, Russia smashed Czechia (don't blame me, it's what they call themselves now for marketing purposes) 3.5 to 0.5, and the US team beat the now former tournament leader India by the same score, setting up a Russia-USA match tomorrow. (That match-up will also occur in the Women's Olympiad.) The US now has sole lead of the tournament in match points, but it didn't come as easy as the score would suggest.

Shankland was flat out dead busted, stone cold lost, buried, finished, had bought the farm, and "everything that goes with it", against S. P. Sethuraman, but he played on. To lift a Shankland quote from Chess.com's report (which I recommend be read in full), "I wanted to resign, but I didn't." Perseverance paid off, even though his opponent was rated 2640, and Shankland went on to win a game in which his evals were at least as bad as -9.5. (Shankland had White.) That game is embedded in Chess.com's report, and is yet another example of why I play on until there is no possibility of my opponent letting me back in the game, and no one I play is rated anywhere close to 2640 FIDE.

...

A couple of other bits. First, Nepomniachtchi is now on 7/7, and has a performance rating over 3300. (I though they couldn't calculate those for players on perfect scores, as that's what I remember people saying from Caruana's streak in St. Louis a couple years back.) He's a very bad man in Baku, and I wouldn't want to meet him anywhere - unless I was on his team, of course.

Second, you'll need to read the bit on Nigel Short. He had "fun" with the organizers again today when they tried to inspect him for cheating in the middle of the game, in time pressure. Just read about it at Chess.com. Unbelievable, and one can't help but wonder if he didn't get singled out for this because of his well-known and long-running stance against FIDE.

Respect: When to Resign?

On my Twitter feed today someone linked to a piece by a young Kayden Troff from 2010 on the ChessKids.Com site. In the piece he explains when, in his opinion at that time, a player should play on as opposed to resign in a bad position. Mostly it comes down to, "If you think you can learn something from the other player's technique, or if you think you've still got some chances, play on. Else, resign."

Certainly that's not bad advice. He mentions cases in which players get annoyed or upset when someone failed to resign at the "proper" time.

Another example of the need to fight to the bitter end

Dennis Monokroussos (can you tell he's a favorite chess writer of mine?) is now writing a column for a site called World Chess. His most recent column features a brilliant, if flawed, game between two obscure Dutch amateurs from the 1930s. In it, the player of the white pieces (Chris de Ronde) goes for a wild attacking idea while in deep time trouble. His opponent (Hendrik Kamstra) goes wrong in the complications, which isn't surprising given the difficulty of the game.

Read all about it there.

Fighting to the bitter end pays off!

Part Whatever-it-is in my Bitter Ender Chronicles

The second Millionaire Chess event took place in Las Vegas recently. Chess.com was there and held a Best Game Contest, the winner of which would be awarded free entry into next year's edition of the tournament: a prize worth a cool $1,000! Players submitted their games and eventually a winner was chosen. The winning game came from the Under 2000 section.

Now the game can't really be considered "best" in terms of accuracy. Here's how judge IM Daniel Rensch described it:

Full of errors? Yes! Both sides played terribly to allow the other the huge advantage that each maintained at one point in the game? Of course! But isn't that what beauty is all about? :P OK, maybe not! But the fact that I went through this game at first thinking "well, this isn't so special...White blundered with 7.Nd2 and Black found an obvious, typical idea" only to realize that White fought like an angry pit bull for 40+ moves to work his/her way BACK into the game and eventually win! Wow! That's awesome. And a sexy finish to go with it! :D

Dogged determination won this game! 

Moves 7-9 were a comedy of errors for White, dumping him in a dead lost position. But having a dead won position before move ten apparently left Black feeling a bit too relaxed, and at move 20 he starts giving the advantage away, a little at a time, until he blunders into an "even" position around move 27. Further inaccuracies are exchanged until Black commits the biggest blunder of the game on move 33. Death follows. Note that all these errors were committed by players rated 1943 and 1839!

Always fight to the bitter end!

The Bitter End

We've got some players at the club who are either fairly new to the game, or returning to the game after a long absence. That's why I'm obsessed at the moment with the idea of playing hard until the end of every game, whether winning or losing. It's like football: play hard until the end of every play, every game, and good things will eventually happen. Not all the time, of course, but often enough.

Here's an example* from this week of a player losing a won game because of carelessness at the end.

Dominguez Perez, Leinier (2732) - Perunovic, Milos (2622)

2015 World Blitz Championship, Berlin

Position after 64 Qe3+

Black has had a won game for some time (accepting a couple of errors), but has been struggling to escape from the checks of the white queen. 64 ... Qe4 should pretty much decide things, as White is facing mate of Black gets in ... Qh1 and the black king should get in front of the c-pawn now. (I played it out against Stockfish and had no trouble. That's an easy win!)

Instead, Black played 64 ... Kd5?? and lost immediately to 65 Qe5#. Oops.

Okay, but this is only a blitz game, you say. Doesn't matter. Here's a game from 61 years earlier played at a much more sedate time control.

Batuev, Andrey - Simagin, Vladimir

Soviet Team Championships, Riga, 1954

Position after 84 Qg7

Grandmaster Vladimir Simagin has been winning for dozens of moves at this point, and has carefully advanced his pawn up the board. He now has several moves that make progress, such as ... Kd2, ... Kf2, ... Qf4, ... Qb4, and probably lots of moves that hold the bulk of his advantage in reserve. Instead, he played 84 ... e2?? and got chased into the graveyard after 85 Qg1+ Kd2 86 Qc1+ Kd3 87 Qc3#. Oops. And this with a slow time control. (Probably 40 moves in 2.5 hours, followed by an adjournment and 16 moves an hour thereafter.)

This is why I play games out to the bitter end, and don't get upset when opponents do the same. Respect the bitter enders: working hard at the board got them a whole extra point in both the examples above!

* Both examples pointed out by commenter Andrey over at The Chess Mind.

Full games below the fold.