I get it, I'm not supposed to play chess anymore. I quit.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
When to quit.
You know it's time to quit when: you get the TD certification and then no one at your club can attach you to the affiliate, and then you're planning on playing in your first tournament in months and you end up having to spend hundreds of dollars on car repairs and can't afford to go, and then you go to the club and no one shows up, and then you get on Chess.com and get the following position as White in a 15|10 game with over ten minutes left on the clock ...
...and lose horribly.
I get it, I'm not supposed to play chess anymore. I quit.
I get it, I'm not supposed to play chess anymore. I quit.
It's always dangerous.
One can never be too careful. Peter Doggers tweeted the following yesterday.
The main sequence can be found here. I have left out the details, but put in the most essential moves.
So Black played a solid set-up, nothing ambitious about it at all. But White's position doesn't look good, and the king's position looks awful. In fact, Black is winning tactically. Can you find the move?Last night I played myself; a rare thing these days. Went for a solid setup and out of the opening there was a sudden win! Black to play. pic.twitter.com/izrOBONL5x— Peter Doggers (@peterdoggers) October 26, 2016
The main sequence can be found here. I have left out the details, but put in the most essential moves.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
FICS is dead.
At any given moment now there are maybe five real, live, honest human players on FICS. The rest are a collection of open computers, people that intentionally lag up to ten minutes for ONE MOVE, and cyborgs that play five moves of crap and then turn it over to their computer programs until they get a huge plus in the evaluation and then finish the games themselves, usually badly.
It was a good run, but FICS is dead.
It was a good run, but FICS is dead.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Botvinnik's Rifle
One of the "Hansen Effects" on the Central Florida Chess community is a dramatic shift in opening play on the part of amateur players- to which I was not immune.
In particular, both Lars and Jen Hansen encouraged me to set aside the "safety blanket" of "system openings" and to play "the best moves", which the are the main lines of chess theory. The idea is that the main lines are what they are because the best players try to play good moves and avoid inferior ones- that's part of why they are the best (players AND moves, that is)!
In my case, it meant moving beyond fianchetto structures to other ideas, and since I have several friends who are French Defense players, so I decided to give it a fling.
In the course of learning the French Defense, I came across a very nice idea in a game by GM Alexander Morozevich, involving the use of his g-pawn. I was not completely surprised by the idea -GM Hansen has a chapter on "The g4 Revolution" in his book How Chess Games are Won and Lost (which I highly recommend- it's like 5 books crammed into one, where in many cases he uses lessons from his own games [some losses- he is objective to a fault] to illustrate his points. It is a book to be studied, not just read), but this particular application shocked me a little. It reminded me of "Alekhine's Gun" in that it was like the g-pawn was shot out of a "d8 queen/e7 bishop" rifle barrel right at white's king.
But enough text- let me show you what I mean:
Click here to see GM Morozevich fling his g-pawn at GM Michael Adams
As it turns out, this idea is a main line in the French Tarrasch. Here is a much "cleaner" example from a game between GM David Howell and GM Hikaru Nakamura, annotated by GM Sergey Erenburg in the Chess Mega Database from Chessbase:
Click here to see Nakamura's application of the idea
It was only several months later, studying a very different opening -from the other side of the board, for that matter- that I recognized the same idea had already been played. It prompted some further research on my part, and what I learned is what Hansen and Kramnik and other great players say all the time: study the classics. It turns out that the idea applied by Morozevich and Nakamura had been played by GM Botvinnik way back in 1934.
As it turns out, the game in question, Botvinnik-Alatortsev, 1934, is in the Chessbase Mega Database 2014, and annotated by "Kasparov". Unfortunately, I can't tell if it's Garry or Sergey Kasparov, but the notes are excellent. Consider this a review of the Mega Database, as Kasparov introduces us to the idea that I now refer to as "Botvinnik's Rifle":
Click here for the first shot from Botvinnik's Rifle
Some further investigation showed that Botvinnik's idea (as we have already seen), can occur in a variety of opening ideas, from the French to the Queen's Gambit, and also the Nimzo- Indian. Almost 20 years later after his initial debut, we see Botvinnik hunting different game in the form of GM Mark Taimanov and his pet idea in the Nimzo-Indian:
Click here to see Botvinnik aim his rifle at Taimanov's Nimzo
The beauty of Botvinnik's Rifle is that is it more than just a tactic. It is really a strategic theme with tactical implications, and the kind of maneuver that stands the test of time. My final example from Botvinnik's praxis is a game from the winter of his career, after he had finished his run as World Champion. In the game he catches a strong player off-guard right in the opening, and then never lets him recover:
Botvinnik's Rifle, "once more unto the breach"
I learned two lessons from this journey. One is the idea of Botvinnik's Rifle itself, as an idea that can be applied in my own games. The second lesson? A familiar one: Study the classics, as there is treasure in the attic!
In particular, both Lars and Jen Hansen encouraged me to set aside the "safety blanket" of "system openings" and to play "the best moves", which the are the main lines of chess theory. The idea is that the main lines are what they are because the best players try to play good moves and avoid inferior ones- that's part of why they are the best (players AND moves, that is)!
In my case, it meant moving beyond fianchetto structures to other ideas, and since I have several friends who are French Defense players, so I decided to give it a fling.
In the course of learning the French Defense, I came across a very nice idea in a game by GM Alexander Morozevich, involving the use of his g-pawn. I was not completely surprised by the idea -GM Hansen has a chapter on "The g4 Revolution" in his book How Chess Games are Won and Lost (which I highly recommend- it's like 5 books crammed into one, where in many cases he uses lessons from his own games [some losses- he is objective to a fault] to illustrate his points. It is a book to be studied, not just read), but this particular application shocked me a little. It reminded me of "Alekhine's Gun" in that it was like the g-pawn was shot out of a "d8 queen/e7 bishop" rifle barrel right at white's king.
But enough text- let me show you what I mean:
Click here to see GM Morozevich fling his g-pawn at GM Michael Adams
As it turns out, this idea is a main line in the French Tarrasch. Here is a much "cleaner" example from a game between GM David Howell and GM Hikaru Nakamura, annotated by GM Sergey Erenburg in the Chess Mega Database from Chessbase:
Click here to see Nakamura's application of the idea
It was only several months later, studying a very different opening -from the other side of the board, for that matter- that I recognized the same idea had already been played. It prompted some further research on my part, and what I learned is what Hansen and Kramnik and other great players say all the time: study the classics. It turns out that the idea applied by Morozevich and Nakamura had been played by GM Botvinnik way back in 1934.
As it turns out, the game in question, Botvinnik-Alatortsev, 1934, is in the Chessbase Mega Database 2014, and annotated by "Kasparov". Unfortunately, I can't tell if it's Garry or Sergey Kasparov, but the notes are excellent. Consider this a review of the Mega Database, as Kasparov introduces us to the idea that I now refer to as "Botvinnik's Rifle":
Click here for the first shot from Botvinnik's Rifle
Some further investigation showed that Botvinnik's idea (as we have already seen), can occur in a variety of opening ideas, from the French to the Queen's Gambit, and also the Nimzo- Indian. Almost 20 years later after his initial debut, we see Botvinnik hunting different game in the form of GM Mark Taimanov and his pet idea in the Nimzo-Indian:
Click here to see Botvinnik aim his rifle at Taimanov's Nimzo
The beauty of Botvinnik's Rifle is that is it more than just a tactic. It is really a strategic theme with tactical implications, and the kind of maneuver that stands the test of time. My final example from Botvinnik's praxis is a game from the winter of his career, after he had finished his run as World Champion. In the game he catches a strong player off-guard right in the opening, and then never lets him recover:
Botvinnik's Rifle, "once more unto the breach"
I learned two lessons from this journey. One is the idea of Botvinnik's Rifle itself, as an idea that can be applied in my own games. The second lesson? A familiar one: Study the classics, as there is treasure in the attic!
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
E62: King's Indian Defense: Fianchetto, Karlsbad, Uhlmann-Szabo System
Learn it. Know it. Live it.
...
The opening moves are
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Nf3 d6 5.g3 O-O 6.Bg2 Nc6 7.O-O e5
which takes 63 characters to write out. But
E62: King's Indian Defense: Fianchetto, Karlsbad, Uhlmann-Szabo System
takes 66 characters to write out, and that's not including the five key strokes for the "E62: ". A full 71 key strokes! That's just wacky, and I don't mean the Japanese stand-up comedian.
Here's an online speed chess PROTIP: Playing 8. dxe5 followed up by 9. Bg5 with the idea for White of trading his dark-square bishop for a knight and then playing to make Black's dark-square bishop look stupid works quite well. White's play is easy, and Black usually has to start thinking a bit about how to arrange his remaining minor pieces so that they don't trip over each other. It shouldn't be that hard, and this must be an old system (look at the names involved), but the Black players I face online (typically 1700-1900 on Chess.com) don't seem to know them, and consequently they burn lots of time. Plus, as often as not the opening of the center takes KID devotees out of their comfort zone. This plan has worked pretty well for me at much slower time controls, too. My favorite game I played this year came out of this opening system in a game in 120.
Disclaimer: Past results do not guarantee future performance.(cont.)
...
The opening moves are
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Nf3 d6 5.g3 O-O 6.Bg2 Nc6 7.O-O e5
which takes 63 characters to write out. But
E62: King's Indian Defense: Fianchetto, Karlsbad, Uhlmann-Szabo System
takes 66 characters to write out, and that's not including the five key strokes for the "E62: ". A full 71 key strokes! That's just wacky, and I don't mean the Japanese stand-up comedian.
Here's an online speed chess PROTIP: Playing 8. dxe5 followed up by 9. Bg5 with the idea for White of trading his dark-square bishop for a knight and then playing to make Black's dark-square bishop look stupid works quite well. White's play is easy, and Black usually has to start thinking a bit about how to arrange his remaining minor pieces so that they don't trip over each other. It shouldn't be that hard, and this must be an old system (look at the names involved), but the Black players I face online (typically 1700-1900 on Chess.com) don't seem to know them, and consequently they burn lots of time. Plus, as often as not the opening of the center takes KID devotees out of their comfort zone. This plan has worked pretty well for me at much slower time controls, too. My favorite game I played this year came out of this opening system in a game in 120.
Disclaimer: Past results do not guarantee future performance.(cont.)
Friday, October 14, 2016
One crappy feature of Chess.com
I started playing internet chess over 20 years ago. At that time, FICS and ICC were the big places for serious players, with places like YAHOO's game site merely places for creating ridiculous ratings because of the ill-thought out features.
These days we have many more options, notably ChessBase's PlayChess server, Chess24.com's site, and Chess.com's site. Recently I have found myself playing mostly at Chess.com for a couple of reasons. First, I'm poor, so I can't afford the premium sites like I used to. (Thank you George W. Bush and Barack Obama for creating the worst economy in almost a century.) Secondly, the other free sites have problems of their own. For some reason I just don't do well, visually, with the interface at Chess24 when playing, and these days FICS is a rather depressingly empty place to play. So the look of the interface and the number of players means, as well as the cost, leave me at Chess.com.
There is one HUGE drawback, however. In the early days of internet chess, the big problem was LAG. Lag was what happened when there was a slowdown between your location, the chess server's location, and your opponent's location. It could me you were making insta-moves and still see three minutes disappear off your clock. (The time control of 2 minutes with a 12 second increment wasn't the early favorite on the internet without reason!) This problem was solved with the creation of time stamp/time seal programs, that took note of when one received a move, and let the server know how much time one actually used making the move, thus removing lag as a cause of losing on time. Lag was still annoying to deal with, but at least one didn't lose on time on move two any more.
Well, the problems that were solved on USENET in the way back, are still problems for the web-based servers. Today I've lost two games on time when I made a move, and then watched helplessly as dozens of seconds ticked by before the server told be to commit anatomically impossible acts upon myself - and oh-by-the-way-you-lost-on-time, sucker.
It's bad enough being in slump without having to deal with this nonsense. I guess it's back to FICS and the other two dozen people that haven't left yet. Yay!
These days we have many more options, notably ChessBase's PlayChess server, Chess24.com's site, and Chess.com's site. Recently I have found myself playing mostly at Chess.com for a couple of reasons. First, I'm poor, so I can't afford the premium sites like I used to. (Thank you George W. Bush and Barack Obama for creating the worst economy in almost a century.) Secondly, the other free sites have problems of their own. For some reason I just don't do well, visually, with the interface at Chess24 when playing, and these days FICS is a rather depressingly empty place to play. So the look of the interface and the number of players means, as well as the cost, leave me at Chess.com.
There is one HUGE drawback, however. In the early days of internet chess, the big problem was LAG. Lag was what happened when there was a slowdown between your location, the chess server's location, and your opponent's location. It could me you were making insta-moves and still see three minutes disappear off your clock. (The time control of 2 minutes with a 12 second increment wasn't the early favorite on the internet without reason!) This problem was solved with the creation of time stamp/time seal programs, that took note of when one received a move, and let the server know how much time one actually used making the move, thus removing lag as a cause of losing on time. Lag was still annoying to deal with, but at least one didn't lose on time on move two any more.
Well, the problems that were solved on USENET in the way back, are still problems for the web-based servers. Today I've lost two games on time when I made a move, and then watched helplessly as dozens of seconds ticked by before the server told be to commit anatomically impossible acts upon myself - and oh-by-the-way-you-lost-on-time, sucker.
It's bad enough being in slump without having to deal with this nonsense. I guess it's back to FICS and the other two dozen people that haven't left yet. Yay!
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Low energy. Sad.
Ever since hitting 1900 on Chess.com, I have completely forgotten how to play a decent game of chess. Therefore I have nothing to report, chess-blogging-wise. Hopefully I will remember how to play a decent game of chess again sometime soon. I did finally remember my brother-in-law's best friend's name today, so there may be hope for me yet. Maybe.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Friday, September 30, 2016
Thoughts on the old FIDE World Championship format
A while back I was reading one of IM John Watson's book review columns at The Week in Chess. This time Watson was reviewing Andre
Schulz's work The
Big Book of World Chess Championships; 46 Title Fights – from
Steinitz to Carlsen (
352 pages; New in Chess 2015). It's a typically lengthy review, and worth reading. (The tl;dr version of the review is that Watson found the book very enjoyable, and recommends it highly.)
Among the other bits Watson culls from the book is this "oddity", as he calls it:
But when I was a young player, even before playing in my first rated tournament I noticed an interesting fact: between the time when Botvinnik won the title in 1948 and Anatoly Karpov's first title defense against Korchnoi in 1978, the reigning World Champion had only won a single match for the world title, when Petrosian defeated Spassky in 1966. (In act, when I first learned of all this history, it was Christmas of 1980, and I didn't actually know that Karpov had defended his title successfully in 1978. I learned all of this from Golombeck's Chess: A History.)
The titles & matches went as follows (defending champion listed first):
That led me to the conclusion in my youth, which I still mostly believe to this day, that unless the Champion is an extremely dominant player, he just can't count on winning a match as Champion. So Karpov and Kasparov were both able to win multiple World Championship matches as Champion, but Kramnik couldn't until he met Topalov, when one Champion had to lose. Anand did, which makes him unique in that he wasn't dominant as Champion, and Carlsen has now done so once, which fits the pattern.
Note too that if one looks at all of the "Classical" list of Champions (plus Topalov), almost half of them have not been able to win a match as Champion: Capablanca, Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Spassky, Fischer & Topalov all failed in that quest, while Steinitz, Lasker, Alekhine, Petrosian, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand and Carlsen have succeeded.
Or to quote Ric Flair, "To be The Man, you gotta STAY The Man!" And only about half of Champions have had staying power.
Some additional points to make: Steinitz, Lasker and Alekhine all had the benefit of choosing their own opponents, which helped considerably, though Steinitz was willing to play anyone and everyone. (Capablanca and Euwe also had that option, but they failed to choose wisely!) Kramnik sorta kinda had that option, as did Kasparov for a while, but both did win against duly selected challengers at some point in their careers as Champion.
Since FIDE assumed control of the title following Alekhine's death in 1946, six have failed to defend their titles while only five have succeeded. (I'm excluding Kramnik from this list.) What this has told me is that regular practice against the toughest opponents when one NEEDS to win is the best preparation for a World Championship match. Anything less leaves everything to chance.
Among the other bits Watson culls from the book is this "oddity", as he calls it:
“At the FIDE congress of 1955 in Gothenburg, Botvinnik had submitted several suggestions. Thus the World Champion made efforts to be allowed to play in the candidates’ tournament because he was of the opinion that the qualification cycle conferred an advantage on the challenger for the WCh match, since unlike the inactive title defender he (the challenger) was getting tournament practice."The Patriarch had a point, but not exactly the one he claimed. In Botvinnik's case he wasn't getting much practice because he largely refused to play in anything other than World Championship matches through most of his title reign. That was entirely on him.
But when I was a young player, even before playing in my first rated tournament I noticed an interesting fact: between the time when Botvinnik won the title in 1948 and Anatoly Karpov's first title defense against Korchnoi in 1978, the reigning World Champion had only won a single match for the world title, when Petrosian defeated Spassky in 1966. (In act, when I first learned of all this history, it was Christmas of 1980, and I didn't actually know that Karpov had defended his title successfully in 1978. I learned all of this from Golombeck's Chess: A History.)
The titles & matches went as follows (defending champion listed first):
Botvinnik drew with Bronstein, 1951So the defending Champion's record in World Championship matches throughout this period was a woeful 1+, 6-, 2=, 1 forfeit. Over ten matches the Champion was as likely to forfeit the title in a fit of pique as he was to actually win a title defense. Of the six champions of this period, four couldn't win more than one match, and a fifth (Botvinnik) could only win rematches.
Botvinnik drew with Smyslov, 1954
Botvinnik lost to Smyslov, 1957
Smyslov lost to Botvinnik, 1958
Botvinnik lost to Tal, 1960
Tal lost to Botvinnik, 1961
Botvinnik lost to Petrosian, 1963
Petrosian DEFEATED Spassky, 1966
Petrosian lost to Spassky, 1969
Spassky lost to Fischer, 1972
Fischer forfeited the title to Karpov, 1975
That led me to the conclusion in my youth, which I still mostly believe to this day, that unless the Champion is an extremely dominant player, he just can't count on winning a match as Champion. So Karpov and Kasparov were both able to win multiple World Championship matches as Champion, but Kramnik couldn't until he met Topalov, when one Champion had to lose. Anand did, which makes him unique in that he wasn't dominant as Champion, and Carlsen has now done so once, which fits the pattern.
Note too that if one looks at all of the "Classical" list of Champions (plus Topalov), almost half of them have not been able to win a match as Champion: Capablanca, Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Spassky, Fischer & Topalov all failed in that quest, while Steinitz, Lasker, Alekhine, Petrosian, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand and Carlsen have succeeded.
Or to quote Ric Flair, "To be The Man, you gotta STAY The Man!" And only about half of Champions have had staying power.
Some additional points to make: Steinitz, Lasker and Alekhine all had the benefit of choosing their own opponents, which helped considerably, though Steinitz was willing to play anyone and everyone. (Capablanca and Euwe also had that option, but they failed to choose wisely!) Kramnik sorta kinda had that option, as did Kasparov for a while, but both did win against duly selected challengers at some point in their careers as Champion.
Since FIDE assumed control of the title following Alekhine's death in 1946, six have failed to defend their titles while only five have succeeded. (I'm excluding Kramnik from this list.) What this has told me is that regular practice against the toughest opponents when one NEEDS to win is the best preparation for a World Championship match. Anything less leaves everything to chance.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Tournament Players PROTIP: Mikhail Tal edition
Given that the Tal Memorial Tournament is currently going on in Moscow, it seems fitting to dedicate an edition of Tournament Players PROTIPS to The Great One hisownself. With no further ado, here's a collection of Tal's best PROTIPS:
- You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one.
- In my games I have sometimes found a combination intuitively, simply feeling that it must be there. Yet I was not able to translate my thought processes into normal human language.
- If you wait for luck to turn up, life becomes very boring.
- Of course, errors are not good for a chess game, but errors are unavoidable and in any case, a game without any errors, or as they say a 'flawless game', is colorless.
- Quiet moves often make a stronger impression than a wild combination with heavy sacrifices.
- Fischer is Fischer, but a knight is a knight!*
- If (Black) is going for victory, he is practically forced to allow his opponent to get some kind of well-known positional advantage.
- I go over many games collections and pick up something from the style of each player.
- For pleasure you can read the games collections of Andersson and Chigorin, but for benefit you should study Tarrasch, Keres and Bronstein.
- I like to grasp the initiative and not give my opponent peace of mind.
- Drink your coffee only when it is your opponent's move!
Journalist: It might be inconvenient to interrupt our profound discussion and change the subject slightly, but I would like to know whether extraneous, abstract thoughts ever enter your head while playing a game?
Tal: Yes. For example, I will never forget my game with GM Vasiukov on a USSR Championship. We reached a very complicated position where I was intending to sacrifice a knight. The sacrifice was not obvious; there was a large number of possible variations; but when I began to study hard and work through them, I found to my horror that nothing would come of it. Ideas piled up one after another. I would transport a subtle reply by my opponent, which worked in one case, to another situation where it would naturally prove to be quite useless. As a result my head became filled with a completely chaotic pile of all sorts of moves, and the infamous "tree of variations", from which the chess trainers recommend that you cut off the small branches, in this case spread with unbelievable rapidity.
And then suddenly, for some reason, I remembered the classic couplet by Korney Ivanović Chukovsky: "Oh, what a difficult job it was. To drag out of the marsh the hippopotamus".
I do not know from what associations the hippopotamus got into the chess board, but although the spectators were convinced that I was continuing to study the position, I, despite my humanitarian education, was trying at this time to work out: just how WOULD you drag a hippopotamus out of the marsh? I remember how jacks figured in my thoughts, as well as levers, helicopters, and even a rope ladder.
After a lengthy consideration I admitted defeat as an engineer, and thought spitefully to myself: "Well, just let it drown!" And suddenly the hippopotamus disappeared. Went right off the chessboard just as he had come on ... of his own accord! And straightaway the position did not appear to be so complicated. Now I somehow realized that it was not possible to calculate all the variations, and that the knight sacrifice was, by its very nature, purely intuitive. And since it promised an interesting game, I could not refrain from making it.
And the following day, it was with pleasure that I read in the paper how Mikhail Tal, after carefully thinking over the position for 40 minutes, made an accurately calculated piece sacrifice.* Decades later Peter Svidler would add to this, "A pawn is a pawn." Later still, either Svidler or Jan Gustaffson extended this to, "Two pawns are two pawns." Chess wisdom is extended a little further each year!
— Mikhail Tal, The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Alibis II
I saw the following on Twitter yesterday.
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!
Forty-five seconds to solve it - seems sufficient, but it took me between two to three full minutes, maybe even a little longer.Chop it up 😝 pic.twitter.com/ped835K3cF— Jennifer Shahade (@JenShahade) September 26, 2016
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!
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
2017 USATS Information
The information for the 2017 USATS, to be held in Kissimmee Florida, can be found to the right in the section for Chess References. The article contains all the appropriate links, as well as hotel reservation information.
Alibis
I picked up a book by Tony Santasiere, My Love Affair with Tchigorin. At the end of Game 19, a loss Tchigorin suffered to Blackburne at the Berlin 1881 tournament, Santasiere writes the following:
* I have had cause to make use of this one, as have other players I know.
The game was a hard one, with Tchigorin obviously not in the best of form alibis are perfectly justifiable and should be mentioned and kept for reference: A Russian among Germans and playing a Scotsman, the popular time pressure, an ache in the head or stomach or bowels*, temporary stupidity, fatigue, the lights too strong or too weak, the noise (even a whisper has been known to induce a nervous breakdown), the smell of garlic or onions from across the table (more likely whiskey from Blackburne) - and we won't even consider the feminine sex or crying children! No doubt you could make a valuable contribution to this list. Ah - to be a Bobby Fischer, and make demands!Others to add to this list might include an opponent with a vibrating eyeball, an opponent's intestinal distress, contagious projectile vomiting, and collapsing tables.
* I have had cause to make use of this one, as have other players I know.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Mark Dvoretsky, 1947 December 9 - 2016 September 24
It was reported today that Mark Dvoretsky has died. Rather than try to add anything about the man and his work, I will simply point the interested reader to Peter Dogger's obituary on Chess.com. A sad day for the chess world.
The article is worth reading on its human merits, but it also contains a problem worth considering on its own. (How could it be an article about Mark Dvoretsky without an instructive bit about the game of chess?) I've added a screen capture of the problem below. Look for that problem in the text of Dogger's column for the full solution. Pay particular attention to the alternate line 3...Kg6 and its solution.
The article is worth reading on its human merits, but it also contains a problem worth considering on its own. (How could it be an article about Mark Dvoretsky without an instructive bit about the game of chess?) I've added a screen capture of the problem below. Look for that problem in the text of Dogger's column for the full solution. Pay particular attention to the alternate line 3...Kg6 and its solution.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)