Kasparov plays a simul. Short comments. Chess wins.
Your Next Move 2009 Highlights - Part 1 (9:56) • 'These videos contain the highlights from the Your Next Move 2009 chess event as recorded by EXQI Sport. The event featured Garry Kasparov, 20 players from large Belgian & international companies and 6 promising children. The video features comments from Nigel Short.'
Charlie Beagle (1995-2009), at Age Four Months
Google: "Where Do Dogs Go When They Die". The different answers reveal something about a person's spiritual beliefs.
Two years ago, in Tablebase 2 - Botvinnik 0, I gave an example of the difficulty that world class players can have analyzing certain endgames that computers solve in a second. Ever since then, whenever I encounter a nontrivial endgame with six pieces or less, I almost always subject it to the tablebase test. This next example is from the Petrosian chapter in Kasparov's Predecessors III, where he discussed Polugaevsky's career.
Amsterdam 1970
Polugaevsky, Lev
Gligoric, Svetozar
(After 73.Be4-b7
[[FEN "8/1B6/8/5p2/5k2/8/3r1PK1/8 b - - 0 73"]
In the diagrammed position Black sealed 73...Rd3. Polugaevsky wrote,
As I was leaving the tournament hall, I was inclined to think it was a dead draw. But, on delving into the secrets of the position, I found subtleties of which I would never even have dreamed.
Kasparov added,
A lengthy analysis enabled a plan of playing for a win to be found: Black must drive the Bishop from the a8-h1 diagonal and restrict it as much as possible by pursuit with the Rook, and at a convenient moment advance his Pawn f5-f4-f3.It is not at all easy for White to defend.
A tablebase confirms that the position is indeed a draw. The game continued 74. Bc6 Rc3 75.Bd5 Kg4 76.Be6 Rc5 77.Bb3 Kf4 78.Bd1 Rc6 79.Bh5 Rh6 80.Bd1 Rg6+ 81.Kf1 Rd6 82.Bh5 Rd7 83.Kg2 Rg7+ 84.Kf1 Ke4, which is also a draw. Gligoric made a mistake on his 102nd move, letting Polugaevsky force a win.
The moves given above, however, are not all the best. After 83.Kg2, the trusty tablebase tells us that White loses in 44 moves and that the moves 83.Be2 and 83.Be8 were the only sure paths to the draw. The problem with 83.Kg2 is that after 83...Rg7+ 84.Kf1, which is best play, Black should continue 84...Kg5 instead of 84...Ke4, which again allows the draw. The fastest winning sequence with best defense is then
84...Kg5 85.Be2 Kh4 {OM: Only Move} 86.Bc4 Kh3 87.Be6 Kg4 {OM} 88.Bd5 Rd7 89.Bc4 Rc7 {OM} 90.Bg8 Rc8 91.Bf7 Rf8 92.Be6 Re8 93.Bd5 Rd8 94.Bb7 Rb8 95.Bd5 Rb5 96.Bc4 Rc5 97.Be2+ Kh3 {OM} 98.Bf3 Rc1+ 99.Ke2 Rc3 100.Bh1 Kg4 101.Bd5 Rc2+ 102.Ke1 Rc5 103.Bb7 f4 104.Kd2 f3 105.Ba6 Kh3 106.Bf1+ Kh2 107.Ke3 Rc3+ 108.Ke4 Kg1 109.Ba6
With 109...Kxf2, Black wins the f-Pawn and forces mate in 17. I've indicated forced moves with 'OM'. In other positions there are either equivalent moves or slightly inferior wins by a more circuitous route. To play through the complete game see...
Svetozar Gligoric vs Lev Polugaevsky; Amsterdam 1970
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1111966
...on Chessgames.com.
Continuing with World Championship Opening Preparation, Karpov told the following story about preparations for the 1972 Spassky - Fischer match.
Suddenly - imagine - I received an invitation to attend the Spassky training session. This was an honor. True, my star too was rising swiftly, my name already carried considerable weight, and I had received my share of support. But all this was new to me, and the backstage preparations for a world title match seemed to me like a secret altar. To be there, to peer into this holy of holies was something I could not have imagined a mere year earlier. And so I went to the Spassky session.
Of course, I was not allowed anywhere near the holy of holies. I was considered a chance person and potentially dangerous. Therefore I was only occasionally invited to take part in some trite and non-essential analysis of one of Fischer's games.
I was amazed to see Spassky doing nothing.
Usually the morning would begin with him enthusiastically recounting, over breakfast, another episode from the Greek myths, which he dearly loved and read before going to bed. Then there would be tennis. Then something else. Anything except chess. At that time he was expounding the 'theory' of a clear head. With a clear head and refreshed, he would, with his talent, outplay anyone. This theory had been invented by his coach Bondarevsky so as somehow to justify the World Champion's pathological laziness.
Although I too consider myself lazy, Spassky's laziness astonished me. I was certainly not impressed by the fact that he had been able to win his match with Petrosian after such 'preparation'. With all due credit to Petrosian, I felt even then that the experience of the match with him could not be simply extrapolated to the coming match with Fischer. These were not just different people; Fischer symbolized the coming of an entirely new type of chess. Was this not obvious?
From Russians Versus Fischer by Plisetsky and Voronkov (p.287). I imagine this was the way players prepared in the pre-scientific (pre-Alekhine) age.
'This photo also belongs to: Chicago at Night -and- No-Flash Night Shots.'
Nighttime Chess on Michigan Ave © Flickr user Jaedub under Creative Commons.
The sign over the players appears to read 'Cheese Your Opponent'.
Continuing with Early Kasparov Annotations, the next position is from Informant 28, covering the second half of 1979. It was the same Informant where Kasparov's first FIDE rating, shown in World Champion at What Age?, was published.
In December 1979, 16-year old IM Kasparov was an experienced pro playing in his second USSR Championship. The diagrammed position is from the third round against IM Yusupov, who finished second in the event, a half-point ahead of Kasparov. It stems from an unusual variation starting 9.Be3 against the Open Lopez.
1979 47th USSR Championship, Minsk
Yusupov, Artur
Kasparov, Garry
(After 12...d5-e4(xN))
[FEN "r2q1rk1/2p1bppp/p1n5/1p2P3/4p1b1/1BP1BN2/PP3PPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 13"]
Kasparov played 13.Qd5, noting in Informant that 13...Qxd5 would leave White with a small advantage. Yusupov continued instead 13...exf3. After 14.Qxc6 fxg2 15.Qxg2 Qd7, Kasparov played the pretty 16.Bh6!, the point being that on 16...gxh6 17.f3, the Black Bishop is pinned and White recovers the sacrificed piece. Yusupov went wrong with 17...h5, then blundered a few moves later.
In his book 'Fighting Chess', Kasparov expanded the comment to Black's 13th move.
In the endgame arising after 13...Qxd5 14.Bxd5 exf3 15.Bxc6 fxg2 16.Kxg2 Rad8 17.a4, White has a clear advantage. This was already demonstrated in a game from the Alekhine - Teichman match, in Berlin 1921!
The comment reveals that, at the time of the game,
Two important characteristics of future World Champion Kasparov were already apparent in the teenage Kasparov. To play through the complete game see...
Garry Kasparov vs Artur Yusupov, Minsk 1979
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1069794
...on Chessgames.com.
I liked the chart in The Class of 1990 so much that I decided to do a similar chart for the players who fought World Championship matches in the years 2000+.
The data is from FIDE Historical Ratings on Olimpbase, and shows the highest rating calculated for a player at age such-and-such. The Olimpbase data stops in 2001, which explains why the table stops at a certain age for each player.
In my earlier post on this blog World Championship Opening Preparation, when I wrote, 'the title of this post is a subject of recurring interest to me', my words were truer than I realized. A few weeks before, I had used exactly the same title for a post on my chess960 blog: World Championship Opening Preparation. The topic on the first post -- 'top level chess games are won (or lost) during home preparation' -- fits perfectly with the thread of the current series, so I'm incorporating it by reference.
The difference between shooting the Men's Championship and the Women's Championship: the women 'are much more photogenic'.
2009 Women's Chess Championship - Official Photographer (2:32) • 'Official photographer, Betsy Dynako explains what it is like being a chess photojournalist and specifically discusses the 2009 US Women's Chess Championship, hosted by the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.'
For more photos, see Photo impressions of the 2009 US Women's Championship.
Yes, Magnus Carlsen is a great player, but so is Sergey Karjakin. After wondering if it's possible to compare their progress, I created the following chart, showing the FIDE ratings they attained at equivalent ages. It's a little rough because the rating updates don't coincide with birthdays, but I think it gives a good idea of how the players progressed. For example, at around age 12 (and zero months!?) Carlsen was rated 2250, while Karjakin was 2460. Carlsen caught up and surpassed Karjakin a few months before reaching age 16.
Both players are members of the class of 1990, the year they were born, as is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The French player was third on the list of Top 20 Juniors September 2009, after Carlsen and Karjakin. What about other years? That FIDE September list shows that the top player in the class of 1992 is Fabiano Caruana, and of 1993 is Wesley So. For the purpose of comparison, I added their rating histories to my chart.
The recent data for Wesley So was missing, so I assembled it from other sources. That's why there's a gap for him at age 14 years and 6 months. If you want to check my work, I took the data from Fide.com:-
I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from this exercise, except to note that these are all fantastically talented chess players!
Like the Streatham & Brixton blog in Magnus Carlsen is not that good. Is he?, anyone who hasn't already recognized the young Norwegian's rise to the world no.1 ranking can only shake his head in wonder. The first mention of Carlsen that I could find in TWIC is from 'THE WEEK IN CHESS 337 23rd April 2001 by Mark Crowther'.
Eirik Gullaksen reports: The Gausdal Classics were played at Gausdal Høifjellshotell in Norway 15-22. April 2001. In the GM group there was an impressive result by Åkesson, who cruised to a 2750 performance. The Swede also won the previous tournament at Gaudal, the Troll Masters in January.
The IMA group saw a good result by the Bulgarian Petrov, who seems to be climbing in the rating lists. Hole and Hersvik both came close to their first IM-norms, but in the end both were half a point short after drawing in the final round. 10 year old prodigy Magnus Carlsen made his debut at this level, and can be satisfied with his 2090 performance.
TWIC also published the following crosstable, showing Carlsen finishing +0-4=5.
Source: The Week in Chess
His next appearances in TWIC were
THE WEEK IN CHESS 354 20th August 2001 • Nordic Championships Bergen NOR (NOR), 4-12 viii 2001 • 1. Agrest, Evgenij g SWE 2529; 2. Kogan, Artur g ISR 2517; [...] 71. Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2084; and
THE WEEK IN CHESS 375 14th January 2002 • Troll Masters Gausdal NOR (NOR), 4-11 i 2002 • 1. Rausis, Igors g LAT 2466; 2. Womacka, Mathias m GER 2499; [...] 25. Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2127
TWIC 375 also mentioned a third place finish at the Open Norwegian Rapids.
The open Norwegian rapid chess championships were played in Fredrikstad (south-east of Oslo) 12th-13th January 2002. • Leading Final Standings: 1. GM Simen Agdestein 2572 NOR 10.0; 2. GM Vadim Milov 2595 SUI 9.0; 3. Magnus Carlsen 2072 NOR 6.5 [...] (120 participants)
How did Carlsen's rating decline from 11 January (2127) to 13 January (2072)?
Continuing with World Championship Opening Preparation,
one of the resources I mentioned was 'From London to Elista' by Evgeny Bareev and Ilya Levitov. The book is a combination of narrative and annotations to all Kramnik's World Championship games between 2000 and 2006.
The narrative, structured as a series of dialogs between Bareev (B) and Levitov (L), includes in the chapter on the 2000 Kasparov - Kramnik match a long historical discussion titled 'On World Championship Matches' (p.48-59). It covers many secondary topics, including the evolution of opening preparation. Here is a summary of material related to advances in opening preparation.
(L): 'Shall we discuss the Capablanca - Alekhine match of 1927?' (B): 'That was a long time ago. They both played the Queen's Gambit until they were blue in the face.' (L): 'We also don't need to discuss the Alekhine - Euwe matches.' (B): 'It's worth noting one fact -- the openings discussion went beyond the boundaries of the Queen's Gambit.' (p.49)
A common theme of ex-Soviet (especially Russian) players is that the modern era of chess started with Botvinnik's victory in the 1948 match tournament. Before that was some kind of chess pre-history that just isn't relevant today.
(B): 'It makes sense to start with the match of Botvinnik - Bronstein of 1951. Both Kasparov and Kramnik are proteges of the Botvinnik school. They very carefully studied [Botvinnik's] legacy to their own benefit. I'll point out first of all that neither Botvinnik nor Bronstein were prepared to play chess at a high level. Botvinnik hadn't played competitively for three years as he was doing his scientific work. Naturally, he was out of form. And Bronstein... Kramnik, for example, thinks that he never reached Botvinnik's level.' (p.50)
(B): '[The 1954 Botvinnik - Smyslov] match showed that opening preparation is of paramount significance in World Championship matches. Botvinnik himself, after winning game 2 in 30 moves, wrote: "This game is a clear example of the usefulness of home preparation." He constantly anticipated where he could put pressure on his opponent. From this match we can already draw the conclusion that Botvinnik was an absolute genius at preparation. As the match went on, Botvinnik searched for weaknesses in his opponent's repertoire.' (p.51)
(B): '[In 1957] Smyslov's superiority was obvious. He prepared superbly and was able to knock out all of Botvinnik's openings.' (p.52)
(B): 'In 1960 Tal played a match with Botvinnik. The Patriarch [Botvinnik] had absolutely overwhelming superiority in the opening, but this was of no significance -- he couldn't figure Tal out. In the second match a year, Botvinnik was in the right mood, he chose the appropriate openings and he was used to Tal's style. As in the previous match, Botvinnik came out of the opening with better positions, but this time he didn't give Tal the opportunity to create an upset and he carefully realized his advantage.' (p.53)
(L): 'It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that all the Soviet champions, starting with Smyslov and ending with Kramnik, "grew out of Botvinnik". He wasn't just the founder and ideologue of the Soviet chess school, he also simply taught them to play professional chess. He taught them about correct preparation, the psychological aspects of competition, opening strategies, etc. etc.' (p.55)
After the other Soviet players had assimilated and perfected Botvinnik's methods, the next advance was made by Fischer and accelerated by Karpov.
(B): '[In 1972] Fischer tested [Spassky] in all the openings, looking for his weak points. Fischer was already a little stronger than Spassky by then, he had taken universalism to a new level, he could do everything, and do it well.' (p.56)
(B): '[Re Karpov and Korchnoi], their final Candidates Match of 1974 is more interesting [than their other two matches]. The idea of totality was realised, in particular, in the huge team of analysts that worked for Karpov. It was from that time onwards that the struggle for the title of World Chess Champion became a team sport.' (p.57)
That last sentence is worth special emphasis: 'the title of World Chess Champion became a team sport'.
(B): '[After Karpov - Korchnoi] the modern era begins -- the clashes of the titans. Again the general call-up of the strongest players -- let's find novelties to aid the victory of the right candidate. Kasparov found himself completely unprepared to play Karpov and after nine games of the limitless 1984 match he was four points down. Then Kasparov's staff began waiting for Karpov to tire. [...] The players used the same variation with both colors, inviting the opposing side to discover some secrets of their opening preparation.' (p.57)
(B): 'In [the 1985 match] Kasparov was superbly prepared for openings as Black, and he actively attacked as White. In those matches his conceptual approach to the opening engagement showed itself more clearly -- not just preparing some decent variation, but finding the kind of positions that were unfavorable to his opponent, foisting his style of play upon him. [...] Within six months [for the 1986 rematch] Karpov had tightened up his White openings for the rematch, but despite two opening catastrophes in games 5 and 17, Kasparov showed more impressive and varied play overall and dominated. [...] The scandal with Kasparov's second Vladimirov reminded me (regardless of what actually happened) that we live in the information age and we have to be careful for leaks of this valuable material.' (p.58)
The 'scandal' was Kasparov's suspicion that his opening preparation had been leaked to the opponent. This was a new theme that has been repeated since.
(B): 'Let's sum up what's been said. Before a World Championship match it's essential to draw the correct conclusions from the available information, then sit down for specific preparation. If you draw conceptually incorrect conclusions, then all your preparation will amount to nothing. You have to lay strong, firm, foundations. So in the first match [vs. Kasparov] Kramnik guessed right, he correctly broke the situation down into its constituent parts, but in the second [vs. Leko] it didn't work out. [...] The Kramnik - Leko match showed once again that it's impossible to approach such a contest in an ideal condition. They both became hostages to the idea that they were playing against perfection, so their preparation had to be perfect. They spooked themselves.' (p.59)
Bareev's summary stopped with the Kramnik - Leko match. For subsequent matches, we have to find other sources. The book 'From London to Elista' is one of the most important accounts of the World Championship, in particular the championship in the third millenium. I'll be drawing from it for other posts in this series.
From the '2005 Snow Sculpting Championships'.
King Kong vs Godzilla 3 - Chess Match - Godzilla Lost, but King Kong collapsed! © Flickr user Jim Trottier under Creative Commons.
It turns out there's a King Kong Chess Set, but only a Godzilla Chess Piece.
Let's say you find a recent web article on an obscure subject that is dear to your heart and about which you know something, chess history for example. Let's also say that the article is interesting and covers a specific topic that deserves to be discussed. Then let's say that the article receives only positive comments from its readers. Finally, let's say that the article contains numerous factual errors that appear to have gone unnoticed by its other readers. What do you do?
Do you say nothing and let it go, happy that someone else is interested in your obscure subject? Or do you point out the errors, risking an adverse reaction and perhaps stifling the newcomer's budding interest?
The series that I ran on the rules governing the initial position and castling, summarized in Chess960 Is an Evolution of Chess, omitted one good reference. It was 'The origins of the castling move' by John McCrary, a former USCF President, and appeared in the 'Winter 2004' issue of Chess Life.
What was the 'Winter 2004' issue? It was sandwiched between the issues of February and March 2004, 'so that the magazine issue date will correspond to the month it comes out'.
McCrary's article summarized material found in Murray and made the further point that the castling rule served two different purposes over the evolution of chess. Before the introduction of the modern Queen and Bishop, when a game was considerable slower, castling served to speed up the game by getting the King into play more quickly. After the introduction of the modern pieces, when the game became markedly faster, castling served to move the King into safety, out of range of the powerful diagonal pieces.
The article was one of a series on chess history, all by McCrary. Since the title of this blog implies an interest in chess history ('For All Ages'), here's a summary of those Chess Life (CL) articles. Each entry starts with the CL publication date of the issue containing the particular article.
2003-01: 01 - The beginning of chess
2003-02: 02 - The middle ages
2003-03: 03 - The chess of the mad Queen
2003-04: 04 - Books, magazines, and tournaments
2003-05: 05 - Chess becomes organized
2003-06: 06 - Chess helps lead the way
2003-07: 07 - The 19th century chess scene
2003-08: 08 - The modern world championship begins
2003-09: 09 - The growing pains of the world championship
2003-10: 10 - The three ways USCF transformed world chess
2003-12: 11 - The first known chess players in the future U.S.
2004-WI: 12 - The origins of the castling move
2004-07: 13 - The evolution of pawn promotion
2004-11: 14 - The evolution of special draw rules
2005-03: 15 - The evolution of chess notation
2005-06: 16 - The world championship - past and present
Taken together, the articles present a useful structure to an organized survey of chess history.
The title of this post is a subject of recurring interest to me, combining as it does the World Championship (an old hobby of mine) with openings (an even older hobby), specifically the role of opening preparation in determining the World Champions. The issue of preparation is particularly relevant to my Chess960 Blog (a newer hobby).
The modern practice, where teams of analysts assist the World Champion or his challenger in dissecting and digesting the opening repertoire of the future opponent, is well documented in current chess literature. A good example can be found in 'From London to Elista' by Bareev and Levitov, which has inside looks at Kramnik's title matches in 2000, 2004, and 2006. Bareev was one of Kramnik's seconds for the first two matches.
I imagine that in preparing for the matches of 100 years ago -- Lasker vs. Tarrasch, vs. Schlechter, and vs. Janowski -- the players did little more than make a general survey of their future opponent's games, with the object of being familiar with positions likely to arise during the course of the match. When did the practice of serious preparation start? I suspect it was the 1927 Alekhine - Capablanca match. Alekhine was, after all, one of the first great practitioners of the science of openings. From 'The Soviet School of Chess' by Kotov & Yudovich (p.42):-
The titanic amount of work [Alekhine] put into studying strategy in preparation for the match with Capablanca in 1927 is well known. He studied the Cuban master's style down to its minutest details, discovered inconspicuous weaknesses in his apparently flawless playing, and defeated him.
It doesn't take much imagination to suppose that detailed scrutiny of Capablanca's openings was part of the study. As for Capablanca, his confidence in his own ability to solve all problems over the board probably convinced him that opening preparation was unnecessary. This made the 1927 match an unusual example of preparation by one side only. I assume this was also the case with the two Alekhine - Bogoljubov matches.
This changed with the two Alekhine - Euwe matches. Here were two adversaries both known for their meticulous study of the openings. From 'Extreme Chess' by Purdy, on the 1937 match (p.85):-
The Seconds: Each player was allowed a "second" who analyzed openings with him before and during the match, and who was also permitted to assist him with adjournment analysis! Alekhine's second was Erich Eliskases, the brilliant Viennese master; and Euwe's was Reuben Fine, the young American grandmaster and chess encyclopedia. Quite early in the match, Fine had to go to the hospital with appendicitis, so that Euwe lost his services.
Aside from the surprise indicated by '!' after 'assist him with adjournment analysis', the role of the two seconds was consistent with modern practice. Skip forward a full decade. For the next two decades after WWII, the World Championship was dominated by Botvinnik; Kotov & Yudovich again (p.133):-
One of the secrets of Botvinnik's success is his opening erudition. His knowledge of openings is as diversified as it is deep. He is remarkably fertile in inventing and playing new variations. His original, unexpected opening innovations have amazed the chess world time and again.
It's not difficult to imagine that opening study played an even deeper role in Botvinnik's preparation than it did for any of the pre-WWII matches. After Botvinnik, we have Fischer, Karpov, and Kasparov, none of whom were deficient in opening preparation.
Since much of the foregoing discussion is speculative -- 'I imagine', 'I suspect', 'probably', 'I assume', 'not difficult to imagine' -- I'll use this post as an anchor for more precise references. I've often found it curious how, once my attention latches onto a topic, supporting material crosses my radar with greater frequency than before.
Garry Kasparov is one guaranteed attention-getter for chess and Magnus Carlsen is another. What happens when you put them together on Swedish TV?
Kasparov [and Carlsen] Interview (9:57) • 'An English [language] interview with Garry Kasparov on 18th September 2009 on Swedish TV show, Skavlan.'
If you're wondering about the Swedish language sequence in the middle, this video, also on Youtube.com, explains everything: Alexander Rybak sier til Lena Endre at hun er så vakker. If you'd like to know more about the clip, including the three non-chess personalities, see this Chessbase.com article: Kasparov and Carlsen on Norway's NRK talk show.
Near the end of last year I noted the availability of LIFE Photos on Google. Not long afterwards I noted Chess Magazines on Google. Now I discover, via Life mag goes online through Google scan project (Yahoo.com), that the two projects are really the same.
The first link in the Yahoo article is a Tinyurl.com concoction leading to LIFE Nov 23, 1936, aka LIFE Magazine Vol. 1, No. 1. [Am I the only person who hates clicking Tinyurl? You never know what's going to pop up on the other side of the click.]
If you enter the search term 'chess' (what else?) in 'Search in this magazine' (which is not the search box at the top of the page?!), you get: Magazines 1 - 10 of 307 on chess. The first search result is 'Chess champion Bobby Fischer is deep in training?', LIFE Magazine, 19 May 1972. The article starts with the famous photo of Bobby holding his legs underwater.
The Google hits just keep on coming!
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