This had me puzzled when I first saw it...
Subject: Chess Informant News
From: "Chess Informant"
Date:Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:36:00 -0500 (EST)
Dear Chess Friend,
We have lived to be 100. Please check us at www.sahovski.com or buy at http://www.sahovski.co.yu/products/ci/...
Chess Greetings
Chess Informant Team
...100 employees? Matanovic 100 years old? Then I saw this on that second link...
...Congratulations, Chess Informant!
After so many examples of Petrosian's Exchange Sacrifice, the next move in the diagrammed position is not hard to see. Black played 25...Rxe4. Petrosian wrote:
Why did Black sacrifice the exchange so 'light-heartedly'? Because he got for his Rook, in addition to a minor piece, a Pawn. 'Ceteris paribus' a minor piece plus a Pawn are good compensation for a Rook. Black has two Bishops now. His light squared Bishop is particularly strong, while the White Rooks have no operational freedom. It is quite clear that Black will strengthen his position and increase the pressure.
The game continued 26.Bxe4 Bxe4 27.Nc2 d5 28.Nd4 b4 29.cxb4 axb4 30.a4 Qa7 31.Qf2 Rc8 32.b3 Bf8 33.Nb5 Qa6 34.Qe2 Qb6+ 35.Kf1.
Bucharest 1953
Petrosian, Tigran
Troianescu, Octavio
(After 25.Nc2-e3)
[FEN "3r2k1/1q3pb1/2bpp1pp/pp6/2r1PP2/P1P1N1P1/1P1RQ1BP/4R1K1 b - - 0 25"]
I don't like to give long sequences of moves on Web pages, because few people are able to visualize the resulting position. If you have trouble following, see the usual Chessgames.com link at the end of this post. For the same reason, I won't give any of Petrosian's analysis on those moves.
Black's next move is really extraordinary -- 35...Rc3 -- sacrificing another exchange. White picks up another Pawn, making the compensation two Bishops and two Pawns for the two sacrificed Rooks. Add to this Black's advanced connected passed Pawns plus White's exposed King and it is clear that Black is winning. A few moves later White gave back an exchange, but the game was already lost.
To play through the complete game see...
Octavio Troianescu vs Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian, Bucharest 1953
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106236
...on Chessgames.com.
I cleaned up my file of games from the Soviet championships, eliminating 2000 duplicate games which had crept in from somewhere. I also fixed a problem with a database query, which was counting only players with the White pieces. Since several of the events are incomplete, 20 players in those events are only represented by games where they played the Black pieces.
The following table shows the number of players in each of the 58 championships. I already know that at least one of these counts is wrong ('USSR Chp35 1967'). Now I can use the table as a check against other sources of info on these championships.
16 USSR Chp01 1920
13 USSR Chp02 1923
18 USSR Chp03 1924
20 USSR Chp04 1925
21 USSR Chp05 1927
9 USSR Chp06 1929 qf1
9 USSR Chp06 1929 qf2
8 USSR Chp06 1929 qf3
5 USSR Chp06 1929 qf4
18 USSR Chp07 1931
20 USSR Chp08 1933
20 USSR Chp09 1934
20 USSR Chp10 1937
18 USSR Chp11 1939
20 USSR Chp12 1940
17 USSR Chp13 1944
18 USSR Chp14 1945
20 USSR Chp15 1947
19 USSR Chp16 1948
20 USSR Chp17 1949
18 USSR Chp18 1950
18 USSR Chp19 1951
20 USSR Chp20 1952
20 USSR Chp21 1954
20 USSR Chp22 1955
18 USSR Chp23 1956
22 USSR Chp24 1957
19 USSR Chp25 1958
20 USSR Chp26 1959
20 USSR Chp27 1960
20 USSR Chp28 1961
21 USSR Chp29 1961
20 USSR Chp30 1962
20 USSR Chp31 1963
20 USSR Chp32 1964
20 USSR Chp33 1965
21 USSR Chp34 1966
95 USSR Chp35 1967
20 USSR Chp36 1968
23 USSR Chp37 1969
22 USSR Chp38 1970
22 USSR Chp39 1971
22 USSR Chp40 1972
18 USSR Chp41 1973
16 USSR Chp42 1974
16 USSR Chp43 1975
18 USSR Chp44 1976
16 USSR Chp45 1977
18 USSR Chp46 1978
18 USSR Chp47 1979
18 USSR Chp48 1980
18 USSR Chp49 1981
16 USSR Chp50 1983
18 USSR Chp51 1984
20 USSR Chp52 1985
18 USSR Chp53 1986
18 USSR Chp54 1987
18 USSR Chp55 1988
16 USSR Chp56 1989
14 USSR Chp57 1990
64 USSR Chp58 1991
'Why y'all playing checkers with a chess set?' • 'Cuz we ain't got no checkers.' • 'But chess is a better game! You don't know how to play chess, do you?' • So?' • 'So nothing, man. Look I'll teach you!'
Chess scene (3:34) • D'Angelo explains chess, and life.
***
Later: Same clip, different accent...
The Wire: A New Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ1L9lgbJIw
...Which one is the original? I prefer the first version I posted.
Until now, all of the examples of Petrosian's Exchange Sacrifice have been sacrifices to achieve a draw, at times with some winning chances. Petrosian also gave examples of sacrifices to achieve the win.
Looking at the diagrammed position, Black is better. The move that many players would choose without much thought is 19...h6. Petrosian played the surprising 19...Rxe4 instead. If White now captures on e4, the Black light-squared Bishop will be unopposed on the long diagonal, when the opening of the Kingside with ...h6 will be even stronger.
White played 20.c4, which is also surprising until you notice 21.Nc3, threatening to capture the Rook with the Knight, when the Rook can't retreat to b4. Now the idea 20...h6, is even stronger than a move earlier.
USSR School Championship 1946
Petrosian, Tigran
Dunaev, Vladimir
(After 19.b2-b3)
[FEN "4k2r/2qnbppp/p1bpp3/P1p3P1/Nr2PP2/1P2BB2/2PQ3P/R4RK1 b k - 0 19"]
White continued 21.g6, and Petrosian commented
This move is bad; my opponent was young and inexperienced. He should have played 21.Nc3 Rxe3 22.Qxe3 hxg5 23.fxg5 Ne5 24.Bxc6+ Qxc6, although Black would be more than compensated for the exchange.
The game continued 21...f5 22.Nc3 Nf6 23.Bxe4 fxe4 24.Rad1 (Better is 24.f5, 'fighting for the square d5'.) 24...d5 25.cxd5 exd5 and Black soon won.
To play through the complete game see...
Dunaev vs Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian, USSR 1946
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106130
...on Chessgames.com.
The image shows one of the first chess related paintings that I found on the Web. This particular example was copied from eBay in 1998. I have seen the same painting a half dozen times, but have never seen it attributed to a particular artist. It is never much better quality than shown here.
The auction said, 'There is a Tabor Prang Art Co. label on the back which says the title is "Chessplayers".' Can anyone help?
Continuing the hunt for biographical data in resources at hand, as in Soviet Players on Chessgames.com a few weeks ago, I checked my list of 359 names against 'The Oxford Companion to Chess' by Hooper and Whyld. This is one of the three reference books I keep closer to my desk than other chess books in my library. The others are Murray's History and Gaige's Personalia. If you've never seen the OC2C, as I call it, the book is organized like an encyclopedia, with aphabetical entries (from 'Abbazia Defence' to 'zwischenzug') and information behind each entry proportional to its importance. Capablanca merits 2 3/4 pages, the early World Women's Champions only 2-3 lines.
I have the OC2C paperback edition from 1996 and I noted a few special problems with it. First, I use it so much that the binding is breaking and pages are starting to detach. More importantly, the choice of which players have been included is somewhat arbitrary. There is no mention of the criteria used for inclusion and it appears that the authors had to guess which upcoming players would be good bets for the long term. Not too surprisingly, British players are over-represented in all time frames. Staunton gets a little more space than Em.Lasker.
I found OC2C entries for 138 names, of which 14 were only referenced in another entry. For example, 'P.Kondratyev' isn't listed under his own name. He is listed under 'Kondratiyev Variation, 1186 in the FRENCH DEFENCE, an idea of the Soviet player Pavel Evseyevich Kondratiyev (1924-1984)'. The number 1186 is a reference to an appendix on opening lines where the moves are given. The Kondratiyev Variation is 4.Bd3 in the Winawer.
A research topic for the future would be to determine who is listed in Hooper and Whyld but missing on my list. I noticed entries for Alexander Goldin and Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, both of whom are now candidates for inclusion.
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