Black to move and...be slowly and quietly ground into dust as his king and bishop can never escape their prison cell.
From IM Igor Khmelnitsky's column in Chessville Weekly--you might want to sign up for their free, and enjoyable, email!
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
An Hilarious Position
Black to move and...be slowly and quietly ground into dust as his king and bishop can never escape their prison cell.
From IM Igor Khmelnitsky's column in Chessville Weekly--you might want to sign up for their free, and enjoyable, email!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Chess Blog Carnival II
It seems that Jack Le Moine is ill so the excellent Samurai Pawn stepped in and posted the latest Carnival. Thanks, Samuarai, and Jack, get well soon!
Monday, October 15, 2007
My Western States Open: An Epic Struggle for the Ages
Hey, when you have your own blog you get to pick the titles!
Perhaps it wasn't quite that dramatic, but as a matter of fact all the plans I had made regarding scheduling, preparing, having some relaxation between rounds, etc. basically went completely by the boards, I barely made it into the tournament, had to takes byes in Rounds 1 and 2, got swatted like a bug in Round 3; and yet, and yet...by the time Round 6 ended I'd scored wins in Round 4 and 5 and an honorable draw in Round 6, made an 1800 performance for the tournament and picked up about 40 rating points to get to around 1650.
And, I got to spend some supremely enjoyable time with chessloser and his lovely and talented wife, which was a much finer experience than the chess playing itself. The series of mishaps and emergencies that almost caused me to miss the tournament probably deserve their own post--chessloser and wife definitely deserve their own post. These will follow, but right now I'll just briefly report on the games in my own inimitable "narrative" fashion--I'll annotate and post them separately, as well. Hell, the next six posts will probably be about the tournament--anyway:
Game 1 (Round 3)--I show up not as rested or prepared as I would like, but happy that I got to play at all. The opponent is a young guy sporting a 1711 rating; as White, he plays 1. e4, I go Center-Counter, he gets a strong pawn center but I think I'm okay, then on move 22 he shows good tactical skill, plays d6 to divert me, blows open the kingside and I resign on move 32.
One thing I noticed about this tournament that was very good, though, is that I didn't get too high or too low, really did a pretty good job of just playing chess, not worrying too much about who was better, what might have happened earlier in the game, etc. So:
Game 2 (Round 4)--I play Black again, against a senior citizen from Vegas rated 1700. He plays 1. g4 (and as it turns out, all my opening knowledge is basically useless for the rest of the tournament). I think he has an edge around move 20, at move 30 he offers a draw even though I'm a little low on time (17 minutes for 11 moves), I sense some weakness, refuse, and I outplay him, go two pawns ahead, then on move 38 he tries a desperation trap, I play a cute move to avoid it and he resigns.
Game 3 (Round 5)--Middle-aged guy from Oakland (1681) shows up 10 minutes late looking a little bleary, I have White, go 1. d4 and his first 8 moves are...(wait for it)...h6, a6, e6, d6, Qd7, f6, Qf7, c6; I know this is a "Hippo" or some damned thing, I do my best not to go nuts, and he somehow wiggles around to an acceptable if slightly inferior position with both sides castled 0-0-0, I have some pressure, on move 29 he thinks for 26 minutes and plays a move that I thought was bad--it was, six moves later he's looking at mate in 2--resigns.
Game 4 (Round 6)--Slightly younger guy from Texas (1753), I'm Black for the third time in four games, he avoids my King's Indian Defense and plays the "Barry Attack," I respond sensibly and don't get intimidated by his kingside pawn storm, arrange to block things permanently there. He offers a draw on move 25, any advantage I have is microscopic, so to finish a very good tournament for me--draw agreed.
Enough for now, more to come.
Perhaps it wasn't quite that dramatic, but as a matter of fact all the plans I had made regarding scheduling, preparing, having some relaxation between rounds, etc. basically went completely by the boards, I barely made it into the tournament, had to takes byes in Rounds 1 and 2, got swatted like a bug in Round 3; and yet, and yet...by the time Round 6 ended I'd scored wins in Round 4 and 5 and an honorable draw in Round 6, made an 1800 performance for the tournament and picked up about 40 rating points to get to around 1650.
And, I got to spend some supremely enjoyable time with chessloser and his lovely and talented wife, which was a much finer experience than the chess playing itself. The series of mishaps and emergencies that almost caused me to miss the tournament probably deserve their own post--chessloser and wife definitely deserve their own post. These will follow, but right now I'll just briefly report on the games in my own inimitable "narrative" fashion--I'll annotate and post them separately, as well. Hell, the next six posts will probably be about the tournament--anyway:
Game 1 (Round 3)--I show up not as rested or prepared as I would like, but happy that I got to play at all. The opponent is a young guy sporting a 1711 rating; as White, he plays 1. e4, I go Center-Counter, he gets a strong pawn center but I think I'm okay, then on move 22 he shows good tactical skill, plays d6 to divert me, blows open the kingside and I resign on move 32.
One thing I noticed about this tournament that was very good, though, is that I didn't get too high or too low, really did a pretty good job of just playing chess, not worrying too much about who was better, what might have happened earlier in the game, etc. So:
Game 2 (Round 4)--I play Black again, against a senior citizen from Vegas rated 1700. He plays 1. g4 (and as it turns out, all my opening knowledge is basically useless for the rest of the tournament). I think he has an edge around move 20, at move 30 he offers a draw even though I'm a little low on time (17 minutes for 11 moves), I sense some weakness, refuse, and I outplay him, go two pawns ahead, then on move 38 he tries a desperation trap, I play a cute move to avoid it and he resigns.
Game 3 (Round 5)--Middle-aged guy from Oakland (1681) shows up 10 minutes late looking a little bleary, I have White, go 1. d4 and his first 8 moves are...(wait for it)...h6, a6, e6, d6, Qd7, f6, Qf7, c6; I know this is a "Hippo" or some damned thing, I do my best not to go nuts, and he somehow wiggles around to an acceptable if slightly inferior position with both sides castled 0-0-0, I have some pressure, on move 29 he thinks for 26 minutes and plays a move that I thought was bad--it was, six moves later he's looking at mate in 2--resigns.
Game 4 (Round 6)--Slightly younger guy from Texas (1753), I'm Black for the third time in four games, he avoids my King's Indian Defense and plays the "Barry Attack," I respond sensibly and don't get intimidated by his kingside pawn storm, arrange to block things permanently there. He offers a draw on move 25, any advantage I have is microscopic, so to finish a very good tournament for me--draw agreed.
Enough for now, more to come.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Chess for Zebras (Also, the Nature of the Universe)
"The great end of life is not Knowledge but Action."
T. H. Huxley
I saw the quote above in the book The Anthropic Cosmological Principal, which has nothing directly to do with chess, but is merely the greatest book I have ever read on the history and nature of the Universe, why intelligence exists, the meaning and purpose of life, etc. Y'know, the important stuff, besides chess...
Anyway, I hope everyone who reads this will order up a copy, but right now I want to talk briefly about a different book, J. Rowson's Chess for Zebras, which arrived in my mailbox at the same time as The Anthropic Cosmological Principle and which I recently completed "reading" (I haven't played through all the games yet).
The point is, Rowson says something almost exactly like Huxley in regard to chess improvement, something that almost every reader here has heard and discussed at some point; that many players have a good deal of knowledge about chess but considerably less skill (action) during games. There is a much else in his book worth talking about, but this seems to me the kernel of true importance in actually achieving better results as an adult. There is almost certainly some pseudo-knowledge that is probably hurting your, and my, performance during play, statements in our heads such as:
"Doubled pawns are weak"
"I'm an attacking player"
"I have a big advantage and should win (so I won't even look at lines that are equal)"
ad infinitum. These are the gaps in our thinking, the blind spots and the defects or whatever name you want to give them, that prevent us from seeing certain moves and ideas , that we actually have knowledge of somewhere in our chess learning history.
I believe that it may be possible to improve your results without learning anything new at all, just by becoming more aware, more open to different possibilities, more objective about the position. How to train for this is something Rowson begins to examine, and something I'm looking into for myself.
For more, here's a review and some links by the excellent Michael Goeller of The Kenilworthian.
This will probably be my last post before the big Western States Open beginning Friday. I'll try to post some results and games during the tournament, if time permits. But since I'm meeting up with chessloser and his idea of the right thing to do between games is "Party like rock stars!" I'm not sure about the in-tournament posts...
T. H. Huxley
I saw the quote above in the book The Anthropic Cosmological Principal, which has nothing directly to do with chess, but is merely the greatest book I have ever read on the history and nature of the Universe, why intelligence exists, the meaning and purpose of life, etc. Y'know, the important stuff, besides chess...
Anyway, I hope everyone who reads this will order up a copy, but right now I want to talk briefly about a different book, J. Rowson's Chess for Zebras, which arrived in my mailbox at the same time as The Anthropic Cosmological Principle and which I recently completed "reading" (I haven't played through all the games yet).
The point is, Rowson says something almost exactly like Huxley in regard to chess improvement, something that almost every reader here has heard and discussed at some point; that many players have a good deal of knowledge about chess but considerably less skill (action) during games. There is a much else in his book worth talking about, but this seems to me the kernel of true importance in actually achieving better results as an adult. There is almost certainly some pseudo-knowledge that is probably hurting your, and my, performance during play, statements in our heads such as:
"Doubled pawns are weak"
"I'm an attacking player"
"I have a big advantage and should win (so I won't even look at lines that are equal)"
ad infinitum. These are the gaps in our thinking, the blind spots and the defects or whatever name you want to give them, that prevent us from seeing certain moves and ideas , that we actually have knowledge of somewhere in our chess learning history.
I believe that it may be possible to improve your results without learning anything new at all, just by becoming more aware, more open to different possibilities, more objective about the position. How to train for this is something Rowson begins to examine, and something I'm looking into for myself.
For more, here's a review and some links by the excellent Michael Goeller of The Kenilworthian.
This will probably be my last post before the big Western States Open beginning Friday. I'll try to post some results and games during the tournament, if time permits. But since I'm meeting up with chessloser and his idea of the right thing to do between games is "Party like rock stars!" I'm not sure about the in-tournament posts...
The Strength of Players Past and Present
dk at the always fascinating Chess Improvement has a post that quotes extensively from this John Watson review where Watson quotes extensively from John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book to the effect that, well, the Old Masters (as in Nunn's analysis of Karlsbad 1911) were pretty weak players.
Did you follow that?
Okay, here is a key quote so that you don't have to:
A CONTRARY POINT OF VIEW
(Watson, asked for it, but you're getting it dk!)
Of course the players are a lot better today; it would be ridiculous to think that they shouldn't be. Are the football players of today better than those of 1927--no doubt, they're bigger, faster and more skilled, because they've built upon the experience of players and coaches and trainers, year after year, every year, for 80 years!
Chess has gone through the same process, as how could it not? Botvinnk and Fine studied Lasker deeply, took what they could use and improved on it; Fischer studied them, and Kasparov studied him, and so on...this is the nature of any human endeavor, math or science, running a mile, etc. Isaac Newton referred to it as having "stood on the shoulders of giants." Computers have accelerated this improvement process, as well.
One more point, it is not a matter of "ratings," which only measure results. Alekhine was indeed a 2700+ player, whatever his score might be against Kramnik if you transported him through time.
To sum up, let me put it this way--instead of silly statements about brushing up on openings, I say that if you took 5-year-old Morphy or Capablanca, time traveled them to today and gave them a computer and a trainer they would be GMs at 13-14 and fighting Kramnik or Anand for the championship at 21-25.
Anyone disagree?
I usually don't turn comments into separate posts but in this case the subject really interests me, and it really chaps me a bit when guys get down on chess in the old days by comparing it to current standards. Jim Thorpe wouldn't last a game in today's NFL but so frickin' what? He kicked ass, and will be remembered as a Great, forever, just as will Rubinstein and Lasker.
Did you follow that?
Okay, here is a key quote so that you don't have to:
"In order to be more specific about Karlsbad, take one player: Hugo Süchting (1874-1916). At Karlsbad he scored 11.5/13.5 or 'minus 2', as they say these days - a perfectly respectable score. Having played over all his games at Karlsbad I think that I can confidently state that his playing strength was not greater than Elo 2100 (BCF 187) - and that was on a good day and with a following wind. Here are a couple of examples of his play:"...
[Watson: You have to get the book to see these examples of Süchting's horrendous mistakes and misunderstandings. Nunn also has talks about more positions, and then includes a section of 30 Karlsbad "puzzles", representing all of the players. The positional mistakes by the top players are particularly telling.]
"How, then, did Süchting manage to score 11.5 points in such company? Well, he did have a couple of slices of luck - Duz- Khotimirsky overstepped the time limit while two pawns up in a completely winning rook ending and Alapin agreed a draw in a position where he could win a piece straight away. However, there were some games where Süchting might have hoped for more; he certainly had Levenfish on the ropes (see puzzle 184), and he agreed a draw in the following position against E. Cohn:" [Diagram follows] "It is hard to understand this decision, as with a clear extra pawn Black certainly has very good winning chances and could proceed without the slightest element of risk."...
"Returning then to the question as to how Süchting scored 11.5 points, the answer is simply that the other players were not much better. If we assume Süchting as 2100, then his score implies an average rating for the tournament of 2129 - it would not even be assigned a category today. Based on the above, readers will not be surprised when I say that my general impression of the play at Karlsbad was quite poor, but the main flaws did not show up in the areas I expected..."
And here is my comment over at Chess Improvement:A CONTRARY POINT OF VIEW
(Watson, asked for it, but you're getting it dk!)
Of course the players are a lot better today; it would be ridiculous to think that they shouldn't be. Are the football players of today better than those of 1927--no doubt, they're bigger, faster and more skilled, because they've built upon the experience of players and coaches and trainers, year after year, every year, for 80 years!
Chess has gone through the same process, as how could it not? Botvinnk and Fine studied Lasker deeply, took what they could use and improved on it; Fischer studied them, and Kasparov studied him, and so on...this is the nature of any human endeavor, math or science, running a mile, etc. Isaac Newton referred to it as having "stood on the shoulders of giants." Computers have accelerated this improvement process, as well.
One more point, it is not a matter of "ratings," which only measure results. Alekhine was indeed a 2700+ player, whatever his score might be against Kramnik if you transported him through time.
To sum up, let me put it this way--instead of silly statements about brushing up on openings, I say that if you took 5-year-old Morphy or Capablanca, time traveled them to today and gave them a computer and a trainer they would be GMs at 13-14 and fighting Kramnik or Anand for the championship at 21-25.
Anyone disagree?
I usually don't turn comments into separate posts but in this case the subject really interests me, and it really chaps me a bit when guys get down on chess in the old days by comparing it to current standards. Jim Thorpe wouldn't last a game in today's NFL but so frickin' what? He kicked ass, and will be remembered as a Great, forever, just as will Rubinstein and Lasker.
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