Simon Williams does it again.

The last time we mentioned English GM Simon Williams on this blog the Ginger GM hisownself had invented a new opening, the Bongcloud Transvestite. In his never ending quest to play the weirdest stuff, he has come up with an improvement on the old Englund Gambit (1 d4 e5?!). Here is the tweet with the evidence.

Been experimenting with my new opening. 1 d4 e6 2 c4 e5!? An improved Englund Gambit - https://t.co/LzwMszc4pd

— Simon Williams (@ginger_gm) May 17, 2018

May God have mercy on our souls, for we are naught but wretched sinners all.

And please, no one mention this to Carlos.

A Study

Via the Chess Unlimited twitter feed, I was directed to a reddit involving a problem posted on LiChess, apparently published in 1928 by a composer named Birnov. Here is the problem.

Birnov (1928)

White to play and draw

I saw a solution pretty quickly. Knowing that it is a composed problem means that everything on the board has a purpose, which directs one's attention to the e-pawn. So e2-e4 is likely to be involved in the solution. From there the rest is easy. But then I thought I saw a second solution. I am sad to report that I did not figure out why only one of the solutions is correct. I will post the answer below the fold.

Analysis Time

Here's a tweet from FM Carsten Hansen.

Zivkovic-Kurajica
Teslic 2006
White to move
White played 21.Rd2 and draw agreed - White can play another move to win. #chess #schach pic.twitter.com/guPQUv610D

— Carsten Hansen (@CazHansen) August 27, 2017

The first two or three moves suggest themselves. Then it gets harder. Add your analysis in the comments, and I'll post the correct line later.

ANALYSIS can be found here.

Mate in bunch.

If the answer doesn't make you smile, you either (a) haven't found the right answer, or (b) are dead inside.

Most statisfying chess puzzle ever.
White to move and win! 😎 pic.twitter.com/FiMnXCSYKn

— Johan Salomon (@JohanSalomon) August 23, 2017

Insider Theory

Today on Twitter, not-quite-our-own Theo Slade had a very interesting exchange with Peter Svidler about opening theory. (@polborta is Svidler's personal twitter account.)

@theosladechess In topical lines in particular, top players independently look at the same positions in great depth, resulting in a pool 1/

— Peter Svidler (@polborta) November 16, 2016

@theosladechess ... of shared knowledge which has not yet been shown in practice, creating a kind of 'insider theory'. Official theory is 2/

— Peter Svidler (@polborta) November 16, 2016

@theosladechess ...stuff that has already been seen in published games, and is therefore openly available to everyone.

— Peter Svidler (@polborta) November 16, 2016

@polborta existed. So would that mean that, eg, Black shouldn't go 9...d5 for fear of "insider theory," or is it more a case of Carlsen 2

— Theo (@theosladechess) November 16, 2016

@theosladechess That's a lot harder to say, requires levels of speculation I am not happy with, sorry. Both are possible.

— Peter Svidler (@polborta) November 16, 2016

Apologies for formatting issues, but I think that's easy enough to follow.

One can come up for many reasons for Svidler to defer further comment, too. Ultimately, anything he says could be construed as giving away information to potential competitors about what he does and doesn't know, or may or may not know. Although choosing what to believe of anything he says after that last tweet would become a poker problem, and not a chess problem, if that makes any sense. (And it may not. I am sick at the moment, and I'm not sure that my brain cells have survived the illness, or if having survived they still function with a reasonable modicum of coherence.)

Meanwhile, at the REAL world championship...

Today Jonathan Tisdall tweeted:

Suggest marking Game 17 of Stockfish-Houdini superfinal today for when you have a few years to study a game. Kudos to our robot overlords.

— Jonathan Tisdall (@GMjtis) November 15, 2016

The game, from the TCEC Superfinal, which is essentially the world championship of chess programs, can be found in the archives at the TCEC site. It's completely insane. And there was some controversy, apparently, with the ending. Q vs BB is a win, but not within the fifty move rule. Or at least, I read that somewhere today. Take THAT with a grain of salt. But the game is nearly incomprehensible for long stretches. Maybe if I say down and looked at it more closely with a computer running it would make sense. But I'm not going to do that. For all effective purposes, the top programs running of good hardware are playing a different game than we do. You can watch the games of the Superfinal at this link.

Alibis II

I saw the following on Twitter yesterday.

Chop it up 😝 pic.twitter.com/ped835K3cF

— Jennifer Shahade (@JenShahade) September 26, 2016

Forty-five seconds to solve it - seems sufficient, but it took me between two to three full minutes, maybe even a little longer.

But I have an alibi! Just as I started to solve it, my daughter (age six) walked up and wanted to discuss the care and ownership of a cat which not only hasn't been born, it hasn't even been conceived yet. Such are the vagaries of life with a young child!

"They are trying to convince me to play the French. With Black... "

"... There are some really weird people out there" - Peter Svidler, a.k.a. @polborta

pic.twitter.com/k98LTNo2kJ

— Dan (@AntonSquaredMe) September 17, 2016

Additional Olympiad Note

The US actually tied with Ukraine on match points, but won on the Sonneborn-Berger tie breaks. (Final match results: Team USA 9+ 0- 2=, Team Ukraine 10+ 1- 0=. Note that the US beat Ukraine in their individual contest.) Apparently, the final result was determined by Germany beating Estonia in the final round. Yikes!

Matthias Bluebaum with the win of the tournament! Thanks for the help, Germany! :)

— Hikaru Nakamura (@GMHikaru) September 13, 2016

At a guess ...

... here's someone who really hates the new bathroom rules!

Evelyn Romero Moncayo of Ecuador. She is due soon, Olympiad baby? :) @bakuchessol2016 @WOMChess #bakuchess pic.twitter.com/3zAMun114u

— Susan Polgar (@SusanPolgar) September 8, 2016

What he said.

The depravity of morals in modern #Chess may be traced to those who essay the London System and other ignoble débûts.

— Howard Staunton (@HowardStaunton) September 5, 2016

I've added a Twitter account for the Club

Said account is creatively called @ClermontChess, because I am the creative type. If you've got a twitter account, follow us so I can add more accounts to follow! There's a limit to home many accounts one can follow, and that limit goes up as one adds followers. At the moment I'm locked out from following @HowardStaunton, which is killing me! Grrr. And if that weren't bad enough, I also can't follow @Nakafacts! It's a tragedy, I tells ya!

Every Russian Schoolboy Knows....

That what the tweet below demonstrates not only isn't checkmate, it isn't even stalemate. It's a draw by repetition.

Checkmate! pic.twitter.com/AaC70MSNNs

— Only In Russia (@CrazyinRussia) August 28, 2016

Fun with pawns!

The pawn looks unstoppable. Can you find the impossible defense? pic.twitter.com/RmcqY4IJpP

— Johan Salomon (@JohanSalomon) August 26, 2016

A real throwback!

World Junior Championship, 1953. F Olafsson vs J Penrose. Photo: Arinbjörn Gudmundsson. Courtesy Gunnar Finnlaugsson pic.twitter.com/JLcw9XH5VU

— Lars Grahn (@larsgrahn) August 22, 2016

It's Sabotage!

From Lars Grahn:

Olympiad 1988. USSR Gold. Makarychev(?), Yusupov, Beliavsky, Karpov, Ivanchuk, and Kasparov. Photo: Lars Grahn pic.twitter.com/9rQTarBct2

— Lars Grahn (@larsgrahn) August 18, 2016

Check out Chuky's 'stache! Gives me an idea for what we could do for the next USATS. Clearly Paul would have to play the part of Sir Stewart Wallace....

"Tempus fugit..."

That was Nigel Short's twitter reaction to this tweet by Lars Grahn:

Thessaloniki Olympiad 1988. England Silver. Speelman, Nunn, Chandler, Mestel, Watson, and Short. Photo: Lars Grahn pic.twitter.com/NGdjuC2WRy

— Lars Grahn (@larsgrahn) August 17, 2016

He's not wrong!

A pattern worth remembering

@HowardStaunton does it again, this time highlighting a position from the current British Championships. (Link to Chess24.com.)

Mr. Staunton writes:

White has played with great skill, but here he by no means makes the most of his advantage.

White took a draw here. Can you see what he missed? Answer below the fold, in white font.

Sound advice from the immortals

Spassky takes Bronstein's cunning advice.
Spassky's 100 Best Games (1972), pp.182-3. pic.twitter.com/NYcG6UD91p

— Jonathan Manley (@KingpinEd) July 10, 2016

I feel good about this, because it's similar to something I had noticed on my own. "[A]n opponent already wasting time is likely to keep doing so." - see note to White's eleventh move.

Justified!

Okay, you'll be wondering how I think this is appropriate to the club blog, but I have justifications and rationalizations, emanations and penumbras on my side! This happened in Russia, therefore it must be relevant to chess players!

This starts slow but finishes strong. Trust me, you'll want to see this through.

Well that was unexpected. pic.twitter.com/1KT1QXa1KJ

— Only In Russia (@CrazyinRussia) July 8, 2016