Yet another trap in the King's Gambit

I have previously shown (here and here) that in the King's Gambit Accepted after 3.Nf3, 3...f6? 4.Bc4 g5? 5.Nxg5! is crushing. My opponent in the following game found a slightly different ...g5 and ...f6 "defense," with equally grisly results. Incidentally, Houdini 3 points out 5...h5! (stopping Qh5+) 6.Nh3 d5! as preferable to accepting the knight, although White still gets a huge advantage.

The play in the game continuation is reminiscent of the main line of Damiano's Defense, which goes 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6? 3.Nxe5! fxe5 4.Qh5+ Ke7 5.Qxe5+ Kf7 6.Bc4+ d5 (best) 7.Bxd5+ Kg6 8.h4! In both lines White's queen, king bishop, and h-pawn kick Black's poor king all over the board.

My play was slightly inaccurate. White mates two moves faster with 11.h5+! Kh6 12.Qxf4+ Qg5 (12...Kg7 13.h6+! and mate next) 13.Qxf8+ Qg7 and now White can choose between the classical 14.d3# (Allgaier-NN, 1807) and the modern preference 14.d4# (Green-Kempfe, Minnesota 1982). By the same token, 15.h6+! would have forced mate a move faster than my 15.Qf7+.

One would be tempted to say, "Never play ...f6 when defending against the King's Gambit!", but that would be too dogmatic. As Bobby Fischer observed in his famous article A Bust to the King's Gambit, after 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d6 (Fischer's Defense to the King's Gambit) 4.d4 g5 5.h4 g4 6.Ng5?!, 6...f6! 7.Nh3 gxh3 8.Qh5+ Kd7 wins a piece without too much trouble. But be very leery of ...f6 - it weakens Black's king-side, takes away the king knight's best square, and does nothing for Black's development.

A positional draw

It is theoretically possible for a lone bishop, in certain very rare situations, to draw against two rooks. The bishop must be pinning one of the rooks against the enemy king, the bishop must have at least one additional square available to it on the pinning diagonal, the defender's king must also be attacking the rook, and the attacker's other rook and king must be tied up defending the rook. The "free" rook must be placed in such a way that it cannot check the defending king or pin the defending bishop. See diagram below.

Problemists have long known of this type of drawing position. It is also mentioned in some practical books, for example Ludek Pachman's Attack and Defence in Modern Chess Tactics. In actual practice, it is an extremely rare bird. Mega Database 2013 has about 5.5 million games. The position after Black's 75th move is the only example of this positional draw.

I remember being amazed when I first encountered this idea almost 40 years ago, in a comment by Manfred Zitzman in Robertson Sillars' "Reader's Showcase" column in Chess Life & Review (the magazine known today as simply Chess Life). (As I recall, Zitzman and his opponent might have reached such a position in their game, but didn't actually do so. Zitzman proposed calling this type of situation "the Zitzman theme," until readers pointed out that problemists had conceived this idea long before.)

Despite White's huge material advantage, he cannot make progress. If he waits with Rb5/c5/d5/e5, Black does the same by shuffling his bishop from h7 to g6 and back again. White's only winning try is to give up his rook and try to win the resultant rook versus bishop ending (a book draw). Adams realized this and immediately gave up his rook, but it was still a draw.

Incidentally, this sort of positional draw is one of the few instances where we humans can feel superior to chess engines. If one shows this position to Houdini 3 (for example), it is utterly unimpressed. It gives White a +6.17 advantage - a trivial win! Asked how it proposes to win, it produces 76.Rc5 Bg6 77.Rd5 Bh7 78.Re5 Bg6 79.Rc5, and keeps going that way until it's on the brink of a three-time repetition. Then it finally gives up the rook and changes its evaluation to +0.32 (small advantage to White).

The Art of Positional Play

Not really. I was in a bad mood because I had failed in my previous game, a Smith-Morra, in my attempt to "be like Marc." A positional player would have played 5...Nf6 (instead of my 5...e4!?) and 10...Bc5 11.Bd3 Qe7 (instead of my 10...g5?!). In either case, says Houdini, I would have had the advantage, whereas my "cowabunga" play could have enabled White to equalize. But hey, it worked!

Bishop and knight versus rook and pawn

Every beginner learns that a bishop or knight is worth three pawns, while a rook is worth five. It follows that a bishop and knight are worth six pawns, as is a rook and pawn, so exchanging bishop and knight for rook and pawn is an even exchange. In practice, however, it is rarely so simple.

Often a player has the opportunity to make such an exchange in the opening by giving up a bishop and knight for rook and pawn on the f7 or f2 square. This is rarely a good idea: the opponent's bishop and knight can get very active before the "extra" rook has a chance to get into play.

These themes are illustrated by the following game, where my minor pieces and queen whipped up a winning attack while my opponent's rook sat, unmoved, on a1. In the final position my opponent flagged while futilely searching for a defense against my dual threats of 24...Qxh2# and 24...Nxf2+ 25.Kg1 Qxg2#.

Bowling 'em over

In the context of chess, when we say "sack," we're usually referring to a sacrifice play. In football, it means to catch a player off-guard and knock him down. The latter is what Eric Paniagua, third-seeded in the Super Bowl quad in the eponymous tournament at UNAM, did to his opponents on Feb. 2.

Paniagua (1807) scored an upset victory over Expert Honorius Constantin (2045) and drew Bill Smythe (1873), finishing with a final score of 2.5/3.

For his final trick, Paniagua exploited a badly timed castling to tear open Paul Garner's position and score his second win of the day.

Vito Vitkauskas swept the Rose Bowl quad, 3.0/3. The Fish Bowl was won by Armando Rodriguez, a new USCF member whose only recent tournament activity was the unrated Chicago Latino Championship in November. Rodriguez finished with 2.5/3, pulling ahead of Armel Peel and Michael Monsen with a last-round win (Peel lost in round 3, and Monsen drew).

Complete crosstables here.

Knight forks tutorial

Since we're on the subject of forks, here's an amusing game. White's play was execrable, but the game features two knight forks, one in a variation, the other in the game continuation. White played a sort of demented Kopec System against my Sicilian. Houdini 3 doesn't like my 5...Ne5, winning the bishop pair but exchanging off my opponent's bad bishop, preferring 5..Nf6 with a small advantage. White should have responded to my 6...Bh6!? (see diagram) with 7.Qe2, when the position is about equal. After his 7.Qg3??, I already had a winning advantage! Do you see how?

After 7...Bf4! the bishop was immune since 8.Qxf4? Nxd3+ would fork White's king and queen. So 8.Qh3 was forced, when 8...d5! discovered an attack on White's queen. Now the only way to save White's bishop would have been the abject 9.g4 Bxg4 10.Qf1. He missed this, playing 9.Qh4??, when 9...Nxd3+ won a piece and left White's queen in mortal danger. He fell into a knight fork with 10.Kd1? g5! 11.Qh5 Bg4+! 12.Qxg4 Nxf2+, and resigned.

Not a random shot

Albert Chow was already a strong player in 1979 (he won the Class B prize at the U.S. Open), but he was not yet a match for Erik Karklins. Chow counts on the "fork trick" 6.Nxe5 followed by 7.d4 to regain his piece, but Black has a different fork trick in mind.

Hat tip to Frederick Rhine.

"Meet the Champs"

As Nicholas Kristof goes on sabbatical, he leaves us with thoughts about Elizabeth Vicary Spiegel and I.S. 318 .

O brave new world

The Illinois Chess Association will soon be retiring its too-easily-hacked online forum.

Its replacement? A Facebook page, of course. Thanks again to Tom Sprandel!

Reeling in the big fish

Many have tried; few have succeeded.

Our own Carl Boor took down former U.S. Champion Alexander Shabalov last weekend:

Swiped from Carl Boor

...as originally posted on the Chicago Area Chess Facebook page:

Chicago Masters Dmitry Gurevich, Carl Boor, Gopal Menon, and Zach Kasiurak played this past weekend at the Cardinal Open in Columbus Ohio. Gurevich and Boor shared 2-3rd place behind Brazilian champion GM Andre Diamant. The tournament was excellently conducted with generous prizes and a higher attendance than projected. In addition to GM Gurevich and Diamont former US champions Alex Yermolinsky and Alexander Shabalov (upset by Boor in the final round) competed.

Menon lost only to GM Gurevich (he nicked GM Shabalov for a draw), and Kasiurak lost only to Shabalov.  The local competition is getting rather intimidating....

Nine-year-old David Peng also played and lost a few rating points: he's still comfortably higher rated than your 55-year-old blogger.

Crosstable here!

Illinois Chess Association affiliate upcoming events

Hot off the e-mail press, courtesy of ICA Secretary (and Immediate Past President) Tom Sprandel.

This Saturday in particular looks like a great day for players and students at all levels.  The North Shore Chess Center is hosting GM Robert Hungaski for a lecture and simul (great for adults and advanced students), William Aramil and Carl Boor are teaching in Oak Park (great for all young players), and UNAM Chicago in conjunction with the Chicago Chess Center is hosting Super Bowl quads with a $10 entry fee (such a deal).

Whether it's sixty degrees or six below, play chess this weekend!

Highlights later this month include the U.S. Amateur Team in Schaumburg on Feb. 15-17 and the Illinois Blitz Championship on Saturday the 16th at the same site.  Travelers should mark their calendars the K-8 Championship in Bloomington and the Greater Peoria Open (an Illinois Tour event).

For more events, see the ICA Tournament Calendar.

Affiliate Events

Date	Title with ICA Link	Location
2013-02-02	NSCC - GM Robert Hungaski Lecture and Simul	Skokie
2013-02-02	Dynamic Chess Oak Park Monthly Lecture	Oak Park
2013-02-02	Super Bowl Quads at UNAM Chicago	Chicago
2013-02-03	North Shore Chess Center Game-45 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-02-09	North Shore Chess Center Game-60 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-02-09	Village of Park Forest Chess Challenge?New Location	Homewood
2013-02-09	Wheaton Christian Scholastic Chess Tournament	Winfield
2013-02-10	2nd NSCC Scholastic	Skokie
2013-02-15 2013-02-17	2013 U.S. Amateur Team Championship -- North and Illinois Blitz C	Schaumburg
2013-02-16	Scholastic Class: Studying GM Lev Aronian	Skokie
2013-02-16	Central Illinois Holiday Scholastic Chess Tournament	Jacksonville
2013-02-16	Illinois Blitz Championship	Schaumburg
2013-02-16	Dynamic Chess Unrated Tournament in Oak Park	Oak Park
2013-02-18	IECS Naperville Scholastic Chess Tournament	Naperville
2013-02-23	Thomas Middle School Chess Tournament for Grades 6-7-8	Arlington Heights
2013-02-24	1st Skyrocket Chess Tournament	Glenwood
2013-02-24	1st Skyrocket Chess Tournament	Glenwood
2013-03-03	North Shore Chess Center Game-45 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-03-09	NSCC - GM Alexander Shabalov Lecture and Simul	Skokie
2013-03-09 2013-03-10	2013 Illinois K-8 Chess Championships	Normal
2013-03-10	North Shore Chess Center Game-60 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-03-17	3rd NSCC Scholastic	Skokie
2013-03-30 2013-03-31	17th North American Amateur - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-04-06	NSCC - GM Nick de Firmian Lecture and Simul	Skokie
2013-04-07	North Shore Chess Center Game-45 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-04-13	North Shore Chess Center Game-60 - Plus Score Event	Skokie
2013-04-14	4th NSCC Scholastic	Skokie
2013-04-20 2013-04-21	Greater Peoria Open -- ILLINOIS CHESS TOUR	Peoria
2013-04-27 2013-04-28	18th North American Amateur - Plus Score Event	Skokie

"The Grandmaster in the Corner Office"

Between tax season and a couple chess projects I'm working on, I might not be blogging too much in the next few days.

In the course of researching one of the chess projects, I came across this blog entry on deliberate practice (a buzzword among business gurus and chess trainers).  How do experts become expert at the thing they do? And why aren't we experts? I think I've previously recommended Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers as a fun read.

For the pedantic, K. Anders Ericsson's famous paper is available here (hosted on the Freakonomics blog).

Back to work!

Top 500 players in Illinois

Not on the list?  Play in a tournament and show us you belong!

Rank	Name	Rating
1	GM YURY SHULMAN	2632
2	GM NIKOLA MITKOV	2577
3	GM DMITRY GUREVICH	2576
4	GM VLADIMIR GEORGIEV	2568
5	GM MESGEN AMANOV	2556
6	ANGEL YOSIFOV ANGELOV	2491
7	IM FLORIN FELECAN	2421
8	IM ANGELO YOUNG	2396
9	BOYAN ANGELOV ANGELOV	2387
10	FM CARL BRANDON BOOR	2382
11	FM ERIC S ROSEN	2381
12	TANSEL TURGUT	2366
13	FM NIKHILESH KUMAR KUNCHE	2355
14	WIM VIKTORIJA NI	2353
15	TIMUR ALIYEV	2350
16	FM ADARSH JAYAKUMAR	2349
17	WILLIAM J ARAMIL	2332
18	IM VISHNUVARDHAN ARJUN	2309
19	FM IGOR TSYGANOV	2294
20	FM GAURI SHANKAR	2293
21	FM AUNG THANT ZIN	2291
22	SAM A SCHMAKEL	2283
23	TENZING W SHAW	2277
24	FM ALEKSANDA STAMNOV	2256
25	STEVEN TENNANT	2254
26	GOPAL S MENON	2248
27	FM ANDREW KARKLINS	2241
28	KONSTANTINOS STOUMBOS	2236
29	FM DAVID E FINOL	2234
30	JONATHAN S KOGEN	2226
31	PETROS DEMETRIOS KARAGIANIS	2223
32	FM DAN WOLF	2219
33	STEVEN J SZPISJAK	2214
34	ZACH KASIURAK	2210
35	FM KEVIN BACHLER	2206
36	TREVOR S MAGNESS	2202
37	MARIANO A ACOSTA	2200
38	FM ALBERT C CHOW	2200
39	TAM NGUYEN	2200
40	KENNETH T WALLACH	2200
41	LEN J WEBER	2200
42	FM CAMILO C PANGAN	2200
43	XIN LUO	2190
44	DJEKSHENBEK ALYBAEV	2187
45	AUDRIUS MACENIS	2186
46	MATTHEW K WILBER	2183
47	MICHAEL W AUGER	2183
48	GORDON J RUAN	2163
49	DAVID PLOTKIN	2160
50	DANYUL LAWRENCE	2158
51	ALEX ZIQI DING	2158
52	ILAN MEEROVICH	2157
53	STEVE ARLINSKY	2145
54	JOHN M KROM	2141
55	MICHAEL E ELLIS	2135
56	ZHAOZHI LI	2131
57	STEFFEN HELMUT KLUG	2118
58	ARMANDO GARCIA	2114
59	KENT CEN	2110
60	DAVID TIANJIAN PENG	2106
61	MARK ROBLEDO JR	2104
62	KURT W STEIN	2100
63	GLEN E GRATZ	2098
64	DAVID FRANKLIN	2096
65	AAKAASH MEDURI	2096
66	SHAIKH MOHAMMAD	2087
67	KRZYSZTOF FLAGA	2083
68	RENE ANCHETA	2079
69	FRED SCOTT ALLSBROOK	2079
70	JAMES MICHAEL PAVESE	2072
71	WILLIAM H BROCK	2069
72	JOSEPH ST PIERRE	2065
73	WFM ANU BAYAR	2064
74	JAMES A MARSHALL	2063
75	KARTHIKEYAN POUNRAJ	2063
76	ROBBIE S KLEINMUNTZ	2060
77	FLORENTINO V INUMERABLE JR	2059
78	GAVIN JACOB MC CLANAHAN	2056
79	SERGE MININ	2055
80	BRENDAN FAN	2051
81	SEDRICK PRUDE	2049
82	ROBERT JAMES RASMUSSEN	2049
83	ROBERT MOSKWA	2048
84	HONORIUS CONSTANTIN	2045
85	GENE G SCOTT	2042
86	NATHAN WONG	2039
87	ALEX BIAN	2038
88	JORDAN S COHEN	2033
89	KEVIN JOSEPH VELAZQUEZ	2032
90	STANIMIR M ILIC	2029
91	MAXIMILIAN JOSEPH ZINSKI	2027
92	DAVID LONG	2026
93	VINCENT J HART	2025
94	BEN ROTHSCHILD	2019
95	LEONID BONDAR	2018
96	THOMAS D MURPHY	2017
97	ERIK KARKLINS	2016
98	D GREGORY BUNGO	2014
99	DMITRI A SERGATSKOV	2014
100	SPENCER BLEDSOE	2013

"Henry Hosmer: A forgotten western player"

Commodities traders were strong chess players in the nineteenth century, too!  Check out A Chess Reader for a generous sample of Henry Hosmer's games.

GreenCastleBlock on the Two Knights

Like much of Chicago, I've been home sick with the latest bug. This gave me a good excuse to catch up on Matt Pullin's videos.




The position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.e5 d5 6.Bb5 Ne4 7.Nxd4 Bc5!? is trappy and critical:

White to play: is it OK to take on c6?

Andrew Karklins demonstrated Black's fantastic attacking potential in this 1988 game:

And the following trap shows that White's back-rank weakness exists even in lines when White castles:

And White can resign: 13.Qxc4 Qd1+ 14.Qf1 Bxf2 mates, and 13.Qxd8 Rxd8 threatens mate and attacks the Ba8.

Illinois Chess Database update coming soon

I received my update of ChessBase's Mega Database 2013 a couple weeks ago.  This gives me a good reason to stop procrastinating and update the Illinois Chess Association's Illinois Games Database in the next month or so.  I expect to have the update completed before March 1st: might take a bit longer for the goodies to appear on the site.

Folks who make substantial contributions to the database (please send me your games in PGN or CBV format) and/or who are current members of the Illinois Chess Association as of February 28, 2012 (time to renew!), can, upon request, receive the PGN file of the completed 2013 database.

Submitted games should have been played under tournament conditions by an Illinois resident or in an Illinois event.

We're particularly interested in adding missing games of the friends we've lost in the past year: Morris Giles, Jon Burgess, Tom Fineberg, Isaac Braswell, Ron Washington, and Fidel Serrano, among others.

More Smith-Morra fun

Wijk aan Zee update

Anand & Carlsen lead; Nakamura and Karjakin tied for third.

Follow the live action every morning beginning at 6:30 a.m. Central at this link!  The players have Monday the 21st and Thursday the 24th off.  (Play concludes next Sunday, January 27; on that day only, play begins at 5 a.m. Chicago time: exciting as it may be, I'll skip the beginning of that round.)

The Deadly Isolani

Positions where White has an isolated pawn on d4 (IQP) arise in many openings, including the Queen's Gambit Accepted; Nimzo-Indian; Caro-Kann Defense, Panov-Botvinnik Variation; and Alapin Sicilian. In the game below, the IQP occurred in a Smith-Morra Gambit Declined, which transposed into an Alapin Sicilian. If Black wants to decline the Smith-Morra Gambit, 3...d5 is not the most effective way to do so; Black ends up in an Alapin Sicilian where he has exchanged on d4 prematurely. I recommend either accepting the gambit or playing 3...Nf6.

A lot of players are leery of taking on an IQP, fearing that it will be weak in an ending. However, as Tarrasch said, "Before the endgame, the gods have placed the middlegame." He also said, "He who fears an isolated queen's pawn should give up chess." The IQP supports a knight outpost on e5 and often results in a king-side attack for White.

Another advantage of the IQP is that a sudden liquidation of the center with d5 is sometimes dangerous for Black, as seen in the game below. Although Black's opening moves were very plausible, 12.d5! already left him tactically busted in view of his loose pieces on c6 and b4, and the unfortunate vis-à-vis of Black's queen and White's rook on the d-file. Houdini 3 gives Black's best line as 12...Na5 13.dxe6 (unleashing a discovered attack on the queen) Qe7 14.exf7+ Kh8. After 12...exd5 13.Nxd5 Nxd5 14.Bxd5, White threatened both 15.Bxc6 and 15.Bxf7+, winning Black's queen. Black tried to defend everything with 14...Qc7, but I unleashed a whirlwind attack on his king with 15.Qe4! Bb7 16.Ng5! g6 17.Qh4!, forcing the ugly 17...h5. Houdini says that I should have continued with 18.Qe4! (threatening Qxg6+) Kh8 (even worse is 18...Kg7 19.Bxf7! Rxf7? 20.Ne6+, winning the queen) 19.Bf4! (not 19.Bxc6? Qxc6! 20.Qxb4?? Qxg2#) Qe7 20.Bxc6, winning a piece. My 18.Bf4?! was less accurate, when Black could have played on with 18...Qe7. After 18...Bd6??, Black resigned before I could play 19.Bxd6 Qxd6 20.Bxf7+! Rxf7 21.Rxd6.