At last, a good game

The few people who have commented on my silly Internet games have mostly observed that they suck, and that their dog could play better - blindfolded. But I think that this is a really nice game. Even my harshest critic, Houdini, which usually finds a big improvement for me somewhere, came up empty.

I've always found the "Brand X" 2.Bc4 against the Sicilian, a staple of Internet players, a bit annoying. It gives White no advantage, and sometimes he even manages to hang a piece. (The link is to my YouTube video "Sicilian Defense: The Most Useful Trap You've Never Seen." Commenters have said that it sucks, I'm stupid, and I have the voice of Kermit the Frog. Thanks, everyone.) But if White doesn't hang a piece, I play ...e6 and ...d5 and White exchanges pawns, we end up with an Exchange French pawn structure. Borrring! But IM John Watson says that as far as he recalls he has a perfect score from the Black side of the Exchange French, so I might want to learn to play such positions.

I often try to squeeze White's king bishop out of play with ...c4, but White usually manages to resuscitate it by playing c3 and repositioning it on the b1-h7 diagonal. In this game, though, I was surprised to realize that I could play ...cxd4! and initiate an attack against f2, taking advantage of White's laggard development. My bishop was the star of the game, executing a double switchback from b8 to a7 and back again. The game concluded with a fun king hunt.

This game raised my record on GameKnot to 63-0. One more win will give me 64, the most significant number in chess. That's right, kids - the age at which Fischer, Steinitz, and Staunton died.

Carlsen on Charlie Rose

My father-in-law saw this interview the other day and said Magnus was boring.  Judge for yourselves.

Greek gift redux

Earlier in the month, I posted a game where I'd unaccountably overlooked - thrice! - an opportunity to play the classic "Greek gift" bishop sac on h7. This time Houdini says that my 10.h4!?, setting up the sac, was overexuberant. Despite Black's passive play, he could have gotten a playable game if he'd responded with 10...f5! Instead, he sent me an engraved invitation to play the sac. The final position is amusing: Black has seven pieces lined up on his back rank, and they're about to be joined by an eighth - White's queen. Now I'm 58-0 on GameKnot.

King hunt!

In the olden days, everyone responded to the Queen's Gambit Accepted (1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4) with 3.Nf3, and the game usually continued 3...Nf6 4.e3. Reuben Fine explained in his classic Ideas Behind the Chess Openings that 3.Nf3 was necessary in order to avoid the freeing 3...e5. For example, if White played 3.e4 e5! 4.dxe5, Black could quickly get at least equality with 4...Qxd1+ 5.Kxd1 Be6. Larry Evans in MCO-10 accordingly pronounced 3.e4 "premature."

In more recent times, strong GMs including world champions Anand and Kasparov have shown that it's hard for White to get much against exact play by Black. Attention has accordingly shifted back to the sharper 3.e4. The Danish GM Lars Schandorff in his book Playing 1.d4 - The Queen's Gambit, in explaining the need for a sharper weapon against the QGA, quotes Chief Brody in the movie Jaws: "You're gonna need a bigger boat." Mega Database 2013 shows both 3.e3 (60.4%) and 3.e4 (59.9%) outscoring the staid 3.Nf3 (57.7%). Although all three moves are commonly seen, ChessBase says that 3.e4 is the "hottest" these days (i.e., most popular in recent grandmaster games).

The main line of the Central Variation (3.e4) runs 3...e5 4.Nf3 exd4 5.Bxc4!, gambitting the d-pawn. White usually, but not always, gets it back. The most important line is 5...Nc6 6.0-0 Be6!?, leading to sharp play where, as Schandorff says, the resultant positions "are very double-edged and all three results are possible."

My opponent in the following game tried the immediate 5...Be6? This works much less well: without Black's knight on c6, White wins back the pawn on d4 with 6.Bxe6 fxe6 7.Nxd4, with two immediate threats - 8.Nxe6 and 8.Qh5+ g6 9.Qe5. There is no effective way to meet both. Two of Black's most plausible moves, 7...e5 and 7...Bc5, are both blunders that hang material to 8.Qh5+. Black in fact played the former move. After a further blunder, the game concluded with an entertaining king hunt. The moral(s) of the story: think carefully before weakening your kingside with an early move of your f-pawn, and watch out for queen checks (especially Qa4+ and Qh5+ by White, and Qa5+ and Qh4+ by Black).

This game raised my record on GameKnot to 55-0 and my rating to a walloping 1787. I'll be an A player before the week is up. Woo hoo!

A defensive brilliancy

If you're White in the position diagrammed below, it helps to have nerves (and a brain) of silicon. Although White's queen and rook are potentially a lethal combination, they have no checks available that don't hang. White's bishop also isn't helping the attack. Meanwhile, Black threatens Qd1#, and if White stops that with 46.Re1, Black grabs the bishop with 46...Qc2+ 47.Ka1 Qxc4 wins with 46...Nbc2 or 46...Ndc2. Alternatively, 46.Qg1 seems a clever way to get the queen into the attack, but Black takes the bishop, 46...Qc2+ 47.Ka1 Qxc4, then hides his king from the checks on b5: 48.Qh2+ Ka8! 49.Re8+ Kb7 50.Qb8+ Ka6 51.Qc8+ Kb5 52.Qd7+ Ndc6.

Nonetheless, White has an amazing drawing line! Can you see it?

Stalemate seems impossible: after 45...Kb8 White has six pieces, including two pawns and his king, and all of them have moves! Yet it all clicks in problem-like fashion: after 46.Bb3!! Nxb3, White's bishop is gone, his king is stalemated, and his b-pawn is blocked. Then 47.Qf4+! gxf4 hangs the queen and blocks the f-pawn, leaving only the "crazy" rook at large. "Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?" Note that the knights stalemate White's king all by themselves, so White needn't worry about 50...Qxd7. Black has other moves available besides 46...Nxb3, but in all lines White has at least a forced draw. Glorious!

This is probably the greatest stalemating combination of all time, surpassing the likes of Boyd-Glimbrant, Alicante 1992, where Black had a mobile queen, rook, knight, and pawn before embarking on the stalemating combination. See my game collection for more fine stalemates. But this one is hard to beat.

Evanston Chess $5 tournament on Saturday, May 4

As always, it's the best deal in metro Chicago. FM Albert Chow will be the guest master.

Levy Senior Center, 300 Dodge Ave., Evanston, IL 60202

Evanston Chess Presents:

May 4, 2013, 9:00am-5:00pm

Three x Three, 3SS G/65 delay 5

Three Sections, USCF Regular Rated

Our guest master will be 

FM Albert Chow

Section Gold: 1700 and over

Section Silver: 1200 - 1699

Section Bronze: Under 1200 and Unrated

1600 - 1699 may play up to Gold.
1100 - 1199 may play up to Silver.
Published USCF Regular Rating determines eligibility.
Unrated players may be placed up at TD discretion.

From time to time Evanston Chess pays one or more titled players to play in our events. We usually do not pair them against each other. Even if they should lose (it does happen) we may pair them with the highest score groups.

Three rounds. Digital clocks are required and will be set to G/65 plus 5 seconds delay. Accelerated or decelerated pairings at TD discretion. Sections may be combined at TD discretion.

Registration from 9:00 to 9:30 AM. Players must check in by 9:30 am; players who arrive late will receive a half-point bye for the first round. First Round 9:45 am, last round over roughly 5:00 pm. Lunch Break: We may need to be finished by 5:00 PM, so we cannot count on extra time between rounds for lunch.

You may take one half-point bye in any round but the last.

Entry fee is $5, please pay cash (no checks) at the door. Masters and Experts play free.

Pre-registration is encouraged: Help us start on time. Send name, USCF number, and telephone number to enter@evanstonchess.org

Food! As always, we will order in pizza from Sarpinos for those who would rather not go out for lunch. $5 gets you a minimum of two slices (specify pepperoni or cheese) and one can of pop (Coke, Diet Coke, Orange, Rootbeer, Sprite, Iced Tea).

Junior players (under fourteen years) rated 900+ are welcome. Sorry, but we do not accept junior players rated under 900. Must be accompanied by a parent throughout the event.

Bring clocks. -- Wheelchair accessible. No Smoking.

USCF-rated scholastic events at Whitney Young on April 28th

From the email inbox (looks like there will be another such event on May 19th):

Date:  April 28th, 2013

Place:  Whitney Young High School (2nd Floor Library)  211 S Laflin, Chicago

Schedule:  4 rounds, Game 30, Check in 9:00-9:45am, 1st round begins at 10am, last round should end around 2pm 

Sections: USCF Rated: K-2, K-8 Open, and K-8 U800; USCF membership is required and can be purchased at the event.

Entry Fee:  $20 online registration by 04/27, $25 on site.
Awards are given to the top 5 individuals and top team (3 players) in each section.
U21 Rated Section: Entry fee $20, 75% payout to 1st(40%), 2nd(20%), 1stU1600(15%) 

Register at www.chesskash.com

National Master William Aramil will be giving game analysis and lessons throughout the day.

Death on the light squares

In the following game, White puts all his pawns on dark squares, trades his light-squared bishop for a knight, and lets Black plant a bishop on d3. This is a recipe for disaster, which is realized. Compare the dark-square debacle in NN-Rhine, 2012. This game gives me a 50-0 record on GameKnot.

Robert Byrne, 1928-2013

Obituary in the New York Times.

Byrne, for many years the Times's chess columnist was a former U.S. Champion; in the 1970s, he was one of the top players in the world (his third place in the 1973 Leningrad Interzonal was probably the best American performance of the seventies outside of Fischer).

To do this after age forty was quite an accomplishment.  Dmitry Gurevich once told me that Byrne took his academic training and applied it to chess.  He was versatile: not many players were equally at home in the Najdorf Sicilian (6.Be3!) and the Winawer French.

Many Chicago players met Byrne at the 1994 U.S. Open: he was modest and personable.

Chicago Chess Center: A taste of what's to come

The Chicago Chess Center is proud to announce its first preview event! Thanks to our friends at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México's Chicago campus, we're able to offer our Founders' Court members a sample of the kind of events we plan to hold.

On Saturday and Sunday, May 11 and 12, we're holding the Chicago Chess Center UNAM Invitational, an exclusive event open to masters, junior experts and Founders' Court members. This USCF-rated, two-day, four-round Swiss will have a time control of G/75 plus 30-second increment, with rounds beginning at 10 AM and 2:30 PM each day. Entry is $25, $15 for CCC members, and we're giving out a guaranteed $600 in prizes (five place prizes of $250, $150, $100, $60 and $40). Sets and duplicate scoresheets will be provided; someday we'll be able to provide clocks as well, but for now we ask you to bring your own.

UNAM Chicago is at 350 W. Erie St. in River North (map). Off-street parking will be available for $5 per day in the lot on the northeast corner of Erie and Orleans streets. UNAM Chicago is also an easy five-minute walk from the CTA's Chicago/Franklin Brown Line 'L' station.

If you're not a master or junior expert and would like to participate, it's not too late to join our Founders' Court! Any interested player may donate at the Founders' Court level ($250 or more) right up to the day of the event. Remember, we still need your help to open our doors and begin offering events to the Chicagoland chess-playing public in our own space. Please give generously and become a founding member of this new civic, educational and recreational institution.

P.S. As a bonus, we plan to hold a thank-you reception for our Founders' Court members around the time of the tournament; details coming soon. And for everyone else, be on the lookout for another Chicago Chess Center preview tournament -- open to all -- this June!

Kasparov to appear at All-Girls Nationals

Story at Chess Life Online.  Kasparov's last Chicago appearance was at the same event in 2006.

Supernationals 2013

Once every four years, all of USCF's scholastic national individual & team championships (high school, junior high, elementary) are held simultaneously in Nashville: this was the weekend for "Supernationals."

Results are in, says Chess Life Online.  And Illinois students did more than OK.

Congratulations to two National Champions from Illinois!!

Aydin Turgut of Decatur took the K-3 Championship with a perfect 7-0.

David Peng won the K-6 Championship with an undefeated 6½-½ score.

I was renewing library books at Harold Washington yesterday when I ran into Phillip Turner, father of Whitney Young's Philip Parker-Turner, who was kind enough to send the below picture of the Whitney Young team (here collecting hardware at the MVP tournament).  Whitney Young did more than OK, finishing in a tie for 5th-7th with 18 points, only 2½ points behind the winners.  Sam Schmakel tied for 2nd in the individual championship (7th on tiebreaks) with a 6-1 score, losing only to tournament winner Atulya Shetti of Michigan.

NM Brian Schuman

I just saw Brian's name in a current USCF mailing list, which surprised me because I knew he'd passed away some years ago.  (My brother-in-law David, who himself died in 2009, was Brian's auto mechanic, so I'm guessing that Brian passed away at least five years ago.)  I believe Brian lived in or near Rogers Park, but I'm not sure.

Games, remembrances, etc. would be appreciated.

Queen sac-a-palooza

This is a fun game, concluding with two pseudo-queen sacrifices, but Houdini as usual points out improvements for me. Obvious ones. D'oh! This game upped my record on GameKnot.com to 29-0.

Really silly Internet game

I just started playing on GameKnot.com, which has correspondence games with a minimum length of 2 days per move. That was the time control for the following game, believe it or not. GameKnot assigns one an initial rating of 1200 and initially only lets one play against very low-rated players. That probably explains why I'm 27-0 thus far. This game raised my rating to a walloping 1612, exactly 800 points below my USCF correspondence rating. This game is even sillier than most, but the final mate is kind of picturesque, albeit no Dodge-Houghteling :

Congratulations to Illinois' newest Senior Master...

Adarsh Jayakumar.

Anand on Carlsen

Interview in The Indian Express.

More Final Four hype

...thanks to Whitney Young grad?  DNAinfo.com adds its own spin.

Carlsen and Kramnik lose, tie for first, Carlsen advances

This Candidates tourney has been a real doozy. If you haven't been following it, here's a little recap. After seven rounds, the halfway point in the double round robin tournament, Carlsen and Aronian were dominating the field, each with three wins and four draws. Former World Champion Kramnik had drawn all seven games and trailed both leaders by 1.5 points. Then Kramnik went on an incredible tear, scoring 4.5 points in the next five games, to vault into the lead! He beat Aronian in the last of those games after Aronian blundered away an easy draw. That was Aronian's second consecutive loss, leaving him 1.5 points behind Kramnik. Meanwhile, Carlsen was unrecognizable as White against Ivanchuk, who had an incredibly erratic tournament. Carlsen played badly throughout the game and lost after missing a possible draw in the rook ending. So after 12 rounds, the standings were Kramnik 8/12, Carlsen 7.5/12, Aronian 6.5/12, with just two rounds to go. Then in round 13 Carlsen eked out an endgame win as Black against Radjabov, while Kramnik was unable to convert his advantage against Gelfand. Aronian drew against Grischuk, falling out of contention.

This set the stage for an incredibly dramatic last round. Carlsen and Kramnik led with 8.5 points. Carlsen had White against Svidler, while Kramnik was Black against Ivanchuk. Ivanchuk, as mentioned, had been extremely erratic, losing five games on time before move 40. (By comparison, Fischer lost twice on time in his entire career.) Carlsen was leading on tiebreaks, since the first tiebreak was number of wins and he had won five games to Kramnik's four. So Kramnik had to hope Carlsen did not win in the final round, and if so had to outscore him: if Carlsen drew, Kramnik had to win, while if Carlsen lost, Kramnik would have to win or draw. Kramnik must have figured that Carlsen would at least draw as White, so he (Kramnik) would have to win. Carlsen, on his part, must have feared that Ivanchuk would get in his usual time pressure and flag, in which case he (Carlsen) would have to win.

The upshot was that both of the leaders played badly. Carlsen got nothing out of the opening, got extremely low on time (he had something like two minutes for his last 12 moves in a complicated position), and barely made the time control, only to find himself in a hopeless ending. Kramnik, meanwhile, played the opening dubiously, trying to keep the game complicated and hope that Chukky would flag as usual. Chukky was having none of it. He handled the complications deftly and made time control with a minute to spare, with a completely winning position. Both Carlsen and Kramnik lost, leaving them tied for first with 8.5 points. So Carlsen, despite losing as White for the second time in three games, backed into a tie for first and a win on tiebreak. He will face Anand for the World Championship in November. An unbelievable finish.

Aronian meanwhile won nicely against Radjabov. He and Svidler tied for third with 8 points. Gelfand (Anand's challenger last time) and Grischuk tied for fifth with 6.5, Ivanchuk was seventh with 6 points, and Radjabov was last with 4.

Third IM norm for Adarsh Jayakumar

Adarsh (pictured below with Grandmaster Friðrik Olafsson) recovered from his Icelandic adventure to score a very impressive third IM norm at the Philadelphia Open (performance rating FIDE 2470!). Adarsh now needs to make FIDE 2400 to earn the title.

   

 We also hear there was a little chess played in London the past few days....