NEW! - Chess

May 2013 cover_Layout 1 19/04/2013 13:25 Page 1
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NEW!
Vassily Ivanchuk
100 Selected Games
by Nikolay Kalinichenko
paperback s 320 pages s £ 23.45
A feast of brilliant chess with the best
and most instructive games of the
Ukrainian wizard. A fascinating and
rewarding journey to ‘Planet Ivanchuk’.
NEW!
The Grand Prix Attack
Fighting the Sicilian with an early f4
by Evgeny Sveshnikov
paperback s 272 pages s £ 21.95
The Grand Prix Attack finally gets the
treatment it deserves! Evgeny Sveshnikov,
one of the most respected opening experts
in the world, shows that attacking the
Sicilian with an early f4 it is much more
than just a tactical ploy.
From the publishers of New In Chess Magazine
available at the London Chess Centre - www.chess.co.uk/shop
Chess
Chess Magazine is published monthly.
Founding Editor: B.H. Wood, OBE. M.Sc †
Executive Editor: Malcolm Pein
Editors: Richard Palliser, Byron Jacobs
Associate Editor: John Saunders
Subscriptions Manager: Paul Harrington
Contents
Editorial................................................................................................................ 4
Malcolm Pein on the latest developments
60 Seconds with... .......................................................................................... 7
Boris Gelfand on La Liga, O.Henry and a fingerfehler
Twitter: @CHESS_Magazine
Twitter: @TelegraphChess - Malcolm Pein
Carlsen's Narrow Hurrah .............................................................................. 8
All the action from an epic London Candidates
Website: www.chess.co.uk
The New Challenger...................................................................................... 25
Janis Nisii portrays the Grandmaster she's watched grow up
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Inside London .................................................................................................. 30
Exclusive Annotations from Boris Gelfand and Vassily Ivanchuk
Don't Forget the Second Teams!............................................................ 32
Simon Ansell reports from an exciting 4NCL weekend
Bringing on Back the Good Times ..................................................................36
Peter Lalic's latest advice for the club player
Chess in Guam................................................................................................. 38
Chris Briscoe ventured to the tiny Pacific island for a tournament
Find the Winning Moves ............................................................................. 42
Can you do as well as the players in the Candidates?
How Good is Your Chess? .......................................................................... 46
Daniel King was inspired by an encounter from Las Vegas
Forthcoming Events ..................................................................................... 49
Where will you be playing in May?
Home News....................................................................................................... 50
The Easter weekend, as ever, heralded a number of congresses
Overseas News ............................................................................................... 52
Action from the Bundesliga and a small tribute to Robert Byrne
Solutions............................................................................................................ 54
New Books and Software........................................................................... 55
The latest reviews and arrivals at Chess & Bridge
Saunders on Chess ........................................................................................ 58
A look at the Candidates and the World Championship cycle
Photo credits: Kanwal Bhatia (pp.21, 24), Chris Briscoe (pp.38, 40,
41), Calle Erlandsson (pp.7, 16), Eteri Kublashvili (pp.14, 18), Zeljka
Malobabic (p.10), Ray Morris-Hill (pp.1, 19, 33, 34, 50, 52), Janis
Nisii (p.59), Alexei Yavlinsky (pp.8, 11).
Download the latest index to CHESS Magazine
The index for volume 77 (April 2012 - March 2013) is now
available for download, free of charge, from our website.
Find articles, photographs and book reviews without having
to thumb through a year of magazines.
All games are indexed by opening and by player.
Printed in the UK by The Magazine
Printing Company using only paper
from FSC/PEFC suppliers
www.magprint.co.uk
www.chess.co.uk
Visit the Downloads section: www.chess.co.uk/index77.doc
Special thanks to Chris Ravilious for compiling the index.
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60 Seconds
with...
Grandmaster Boris Gelfand
Born: 24th June 1968, Minsk.
Place of residence: Rishon Le Zion.
Occupation: Chess player.
Enjoyable? Yes; highly enjoyable!
And home life? Great! Married with two children.
But sometimes good to escape to: Some remote place in the Alps.
Sports played or followed: I play table-tennis regularly and follow mainly
football, but also tennis and basketball.
A favourite novel? Too many to choose from! From those who wrote in
English, I especially like George Orwell, Somerset Maugham, O.Henry and
Mark Twain.
Piece of music? Any classical, good rock or good jazz.
Film or TV series? The Champions’ League and Barcelona’s matches in La
Liga are my favorite television watching.
Is FIDE doing a good job? Definitely much better than
ten years ago, but much room for improvement remains.
Or the Israeli Federation? They are also improving
slowly and, I hope, surely.
Any advice for either? Take reasonable decisions, respect chess players and chess traditions, and please don’t
make changes just to initiate any activity.
Can chess make one happy? Definitely.
A tip please for the club player: Enjoy playing chess,
enjoy studying chess and don’t spend too much time with
chess engines.
S.Karjakin-B.Gelfand
World Cup 2009
And any political leanings? Common sense, but unfortunately for the absolute majority of politicians, ratings and popularity are much more important.
What’s the best thing about playing chess? There is a lot of room for
creativity and everyone has his own style and views.
And the worst? Losing a game can be painful.
Your best move? Maybe 11...Îa6 against Sergey Karjakin in the semi-final
of the 2009 World Cup or 18 Ìh4 against Grischuk in the decisive game of
the 2011 Candidates matches.
But less memorable than your worst move? I touched a queen instead of
knight after a brilliantly played game against Alekseev in 2008. Fortunately, a
queen move was still sufficient for victory.
And a highly memorable opponent? I’ve played many great players, but
unfortunately failed to meet Mikhail Tal or Vassily Smyslov over the board.
Favourite game of all time? There are just too many to choose from.
The best three chess books: Keres’s book on the 1948 World Championship tournament, Polugaevsky’s Grandmaster Preparation and Razuvaev’s
work on Rubinstein are my favorites.
www.chess.co.uk
11...Îa6 12 Ëh5 Ìb4 13 Ìa3 Îg6 14 Íf4 b6 15
Ëf3 Íe6 16 Íxe6 fxe6 17 Ëe4 Íd6 18 Íxd6
cxd6 19 Ëxd4 Ëg5 20 g3 Ëf5 21 g4 h5 22 Îe4
d5 23 Êh2 Ëf3 24 Îee1 hxg4 25 Ëe3 gxh3 26
Ëxf3 Îxf3 27 Îg1 Îxf2+ 28 Êxh3 Îxg1 29 Îxg1
Ìxc2 30 Ìb5 Îf3+ 31 Êg4 Îxd3 32 Ìd6 Ìe3+
33 Êf4 Ìc4 0-1
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Bringing on Back
the Good Times
by Peter Lalic
Computers in the 21st century have
changed chess beyond our wildest dreams.
Nowadays, with just the click of a button,
we can access millions of databased games,
engine analysis rated over 3300 Elo, and the
finite solution of every single endgame with
six pieces or fewer – not to mention some
tablebases already reaching seven or eight,
and perhaps in the future all 32 pieces! On
the other hand, if the Terminator franchise
has taught us anything, it’s to be freakin’
fearful of technology (and Schwarzenegger;
but he’s not a regular on the English tournament circuit). Furthermore, I felt this article to be especially relevant in view of the
recent cheating scandals, the most blatant
of which being that of Borislav Ivanov.
Alas, there are many more problems,
which I have personally observed in the play
of my students, my peers, and myself. Although our knowledge has improved exponentially, our hobby has become so scientific
that we are virtually being reduced to robots. For example, as opening theory is constantly narrowed and lengthened, we seek
comfort in repetitively regurgitating those
trendy lines, even at the cost of creativity.
The numerical assessments of programs
such as Fritz and Houdini have almost
turned the modern post-mortem into an
episode of The Price Is Right: “Hmm, I’m
guessing 1.93... I don’t know, maybe that’s
too high... because my gut feeling is closer
to 1.52...” Such paranoid perfectionism may
work for CPU vs. CPU, but it is delusional in
human vs. human contests; in the words of
the successful pragmatist Emanuel Lasker
(World Champion 1894-1921): “A chess
game, after all, is a fight in which all possible
factors must be made use of”.
I hope that explains why I chose the title
of that 1969 Love Affair hit ‘Bringing on
Back the Good Times’. Admittedly, however,
it was only after hearing that golden oldie
on the radio yesterday that I actually decided on this topical theme in the first place.
I heartily recommend bringing on back the
good times in your own games, with the
help of old-school study. My Facebook
friends will probably call me biased, but
that’s just because they are spammed on a
daily basis by me and all my retro posts
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about 60s yéyé songs, 80s European pop,
classic American comedy, and 90s action
movies. Nevertheless, I do honestly believe
that we can learn more from our forefathers, whose fighting spirit is a breath of
fresh air in this stale digital age.
The Heat is On
Amateurs armed with the latest software
tend to scoff at old games, since their
evaluations do, indeed, jump up and down.
Nonetheless, in the heat of battle, there is
no silicon friend to help you (unless you’re
Ivanov). Therefore, the best moves are
those that make the position easier for you
to play and harder for your opponent. The
following inspirational example comes from
the first official World Championship match:
if the best players in the world could bravely
take risks in the biggest competition of their
career, then you and I have no excuse!
According to our modern education, it is
sheer suicide to desert His Majesty without
castling rights. Ironically it is actually Black
who must tread carefully here, since his
pseudo-active queen can be hit with tempo,
while his only other deployed unit is harassed by the central majority.
6...Ëe7+ 7 Êf2 Ëh4+ 8 g3!!
Steinitz clearly understood his aforementioned positional trumps, and courageously refused the repetition, even at the
cost of more material.
8...fxg3+ 9 Êg2 Ìxd4 10 hxg3 Ëg4
W.Steinitz-J.Zukertort
20th matchgame,
New Orleans 1886
Vienna Game
1 e4 e5 2 Ìc3 Ìc6 3 f4
Swashbuckling openings like the Vienna
Game and King’s Gambit ruled the Romantic
era. Despite their dubious reputation, they
still pack a practical punch today: White
develops active pieces, an initiative, and
immediate pressure on the centre.
3...exf4 4 d4!? d5 5 exd5 Ëh4+ 6 Êe2
White’s harmonious army proves that its
monarch is in reality better protected than
its counterpart. That is why Steinitz probably didn’t consider 11 Íf4. Although objectively it is the best move according to Houdini 3, it would be a practical mistake to
allow trades. After 11...Ëxd1 12 Îxd1
Ìxc2 I doubt that Zukertort would have
crumbled as easily in the absence of queens.
11 Ëe1+ Íe7 12 Íd3 Ìf5?
This surprisingly critical moment shows
how tricky Black’s defence is. It seems so
natural to attack g3, defend e7, and thereby
allow ...Ìf6 and finally ...0-0, yet there are
even bigger worries to plague him.
13 Ìf3 Íd7 14 Íf4 f6
There isn’t enough time for 14...Ìf6?,
since 15 Ìe5 would trap the queen.
15 Ìe4!
White’s piece activity overwhelms every
part of the board with decisive effect, and
consequently 15...0-0-0? would walk into a
mating attack after 16 Ëa5!.
May 2013
The Trends in
Chess
Openings
The top twenty chess openings
as played by international masters
and grandmasters in March.
15...Ìgh6? 16 Íxh6 Ìxh6 17 Îxh6!
gxh6 18 Ìxf6+ Êf7 19 Ìxg4 1-0
Poetry in Motion
I certainly don’t need to introduce someone
as instructive as the third World Champion.
Let us just enjoy his poetic simplicity, which
Petrosian and Karpov would later credit for
their own positional understanding.
J.Capablanca-K.Treybal
Karlsbad 1929
Stonewall Dutch
1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Ìf3 e6 4 Íg5 Íe7 5
Íxe7 Ëxe7 6 Ìbd2 f5 7 e3 Ìd7 8
Íd3 Ìh6 9 0-0 0-0
24...Íd7 25 Îc2 Êh8 26 Îg2 Îg8 27
g5 Ëd8 28 h4 Êg7 29 h5 Îh8 30 Îh2
Ëc7 31 Ëc3 Ëd8 32 Êf2 Ëc7 33 Îbh1
Îag8 34 Ëa1 Îb8 35 Ëa3
The professional toys with the amateur,
enjoying the psychological benefit of showing who’s boss.
35...Îbg8 36 b5!
After wearing down the opponent, it is
time to strike.
36...axb5 37 h6+!
This sneaky intermezzo first disrupts
Black’s co-ordination with the queenside.
37...Êf8 38 axb5 Êe7 39 b6
Capablanca chooses an unpretentious
but deliberate opening plan, and contents
himself with a technical advantage: Black’s
bad bishop is a powerless bystander to the
weakened dark squares.
10 Ëc2 g6 11 Îab1 Ìf6 12 Ìe5 Ìf7
13 f4!
Step by step, he squeezes the enemy by
clamping down on the e5 outpost.
13...Íd7 14 Ìdf3 Îfd8 15 b4
Next Capablanca gains more space, so
long as no unnecessary weaknesses are
created.
15...Íe8 16 Îfc1 a6 17 Ëf2 Ìxe5 18
Ìxe5 Ìd7 19 Ìf3 Îdc8 20 c5 Ìf6 21
a4 Ìg4 22 Ëe1 Ìh6 23 h3 Ìf7 24 g4!
Why not expand on both flanks? There
is zero counterplay to say otherwise.
www.chess.co.uk
The paralysing space advantage is terminal, thus it would be more humane to pull
the plug. I’d rather resign anyway, given that
Black can never wriggle around enough to
prevent the looming breakthrough.
39...Ëb8 40 Îa1 Îc8 41 Ëb4 Îhd8 42
Îa7 Êf8 43 Îh1 Íe8 44 Îha1 Êg8 45
Î1a4 Êf8 46 Ëa3 Êg8 47 Êg3 Íd7
48 Êh4 Êh8 49 Ëa1 Êg8 50 Êg3 Êf8
51 Êg2 Íe8 52 Ìd2 Íd7 53 Ìb3 Îe8
54 Ìa5 Ìd8 55 Ía6!
Capablanca exerts his dominance by reducing Treybal to waiting moves, before
delivering the sacrificial coup de grâce.
55...bxa6 56 Îxd7 Îe7 57 Îxd8+
Îxd8 58 Ìxc6 1-0
1
2
3
4
5
6
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8
9
q
w
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r
t
y
u
i
o
p
a
King’s Indian Defence
102 games
Slav Defence
85 games
Nimzo-Indian Defence
66 games
Reti Opening
55 games
Caro-Kann Defence
54 games
Grünfeld, Classical Var
47 games
1 d4 Nf6 sidelines
44 games
Queen’s Gambit Declined 39 games
English, 1...Nf6
37 games
Sicilian, 2 Nf3 d6 sidelines 34 games
Queen’s Indian Defence
34 games
English, 1...c5
33 games
Sicilian, Kan Variation
33 games
Sicilian, Najdorf Variation 33 games
Semi-Slav Defence
29 games
Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defence 27 games
Sicilian, 2 Nf3 sidelines
25 games
English, 1...e6
23 games
Catalan Opening
23 games
Bogo-Indian Defence
23 games
1,394 games played between
1-31 March 2013 where
both players were rated over 2400 Elo.
Source: TWIC. Compiled by: HIARCS 14.
In association with HIARCS Chess Explorer –
www.hiarcs.com
and The Week in Chess –
www.theweekinchess.com
Looking for a titled player to give a
simultaneous display or lecture at your
club? We can help - contact us for further details - [email protected] or 020
7288 1305.
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