Searching for Bobby Fischer (the movie)

Have some free time over the Christmas holidays and want to see a film classic? How about 'Searching for Bobby Fischer'? This clip's description said,

Josh Waitzkin is just a typical American boy interested in baseball when one day he challenges his father at chess and wins. Showing unusual precocity at the outdoor matches at Washington Square in New York City, he quickly makes friends with a hustler named Vinnie who teaches him speed chess. Josh's parents hire a renowned chess coach, Bruce, who teaches Josh the usefulness of measured planning. Along the way Josh becomes tired of Bruce's system and chess in general and purposely throws a match, leaving the prospects of winning a national championship in serious jeopardy.

There's even some vintage 1972 Fischer footage at the beginning.

Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) Part 1 (14:07) • 'Starring: Max Pomeranc, Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley & Laurence Fishburne.'

All parts: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8.

Odds and Ends

Now that we're heading into the Christmas season, you know what that means: less time for blogging. When time is limited, a good starting point is routine maintenance, which in my case means first updating 'Events on the Agenda' on the sidebar.

While doing that I came across a list of Women's Grand Prix events tacked onto the end of FIDE's announcement Women's Grand Prix in Nalchik, 25 Apr - 8 May 2010. That particular event came and went long ago, but the last event on the list hasn't -- 'The 6th Grand Prix will take place in Santiago, Chile, on 27th October – 9th November 2010.' -- and I have no record of any further announcements on the subject. The FIDE Calendar 2010 still lists the original dates and venue. As for the FIDE Calendar 2011, it lists four events in a forthcoming 'Women's FIDE Grand Prix Series'.

If you're wondering what FIDE's long term plans are for the World Championship, the same 2011 calendar lists 'World Cup 2011; Khanty Mansiysk, Russia'. This would be the first event in the next cycle of which the format is currently unknown. If wishes were fishes, I would ask that the 2011 World Cup be followed by a series of Candidate matches, with those followed by a real World Championship match. That would bring us back to the sort of cycle we had before Ilyumzhinov eliminated the Interzonals and started tinkering with World Championship knockouts.

After updating 'Events' I added a new ad to a January 2010 post on Chess Ads - Paul Masson. I managed to overlook it while writing the original post and this makes me wonder if I haven't overlooked others. The series of George Koltanowski solving tourneys was a high point for chess sponsorship in the U.S.

Later in 2010, after writing a post on '50 Great Blogs', I received word of a similar list called 'Top Computer Chess Blogs'. Most of them have nothing to do with computer chess and more than a handful wouldn't be consider 'top blogs' by any objective source, but they're still worth looking at.

Finally, I made a small addition involving Brad Darrach and Edward Winter to my most recent post, The Bobby Fischer Saga (cont.). It's a link to an atypical article by Winter, full of his usual venom but lacking in the detailed dissection for which he is so highly regarded. I liked Darrach's book when I read it a few years ago, although I was more impressed by the prose than by the content. It looks like I should reread it and pay more attention to the content.

The Bobby Fischer Saga (cont.)

There's been a spate of new Bobby Fischer material over the past few months, the most recent being the announcement of ENDGAME by Frank Brady (Crown Publishers). Subtitled 'Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall - from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness', the book will be hitting stores in February 2011.

Dr. Frank Brady is best known as the author of Profile of a Prodigy (Amazon.com), the biography that followed Bobby from his birth in Chicago in 1943 to his capture of the World Championship in 1972. To get a preview of Brady's new book, see Endgame by Frank Brady - Excerpt (Scribd.com).

Less pleasant is A Psychological Autopsy of Bobby Fischer by Joseph G. Ponterotto (Miller-McCune.com, where the essay is currently listed as no.2 under 'Most Viewed'), subtitled 'Chess player Bobby Fischer’s tortured life illustrates why promising young talents deserve better support programs.' Pulling together many odd facts about Fischer, it appears to be the prelude to another book.

Providing a detailed differential diagnosis of Bobby Fischer would require a much longer treatment of the topic than is possible here. I do provide such an expanded consideration in a book-length project in progress. For present purposes, suffice it to say that I believe Bobby did not meet all the necessary criteria to reach diagnoses of schizophrenia or Asperger’s Disorder. The evidence is stronger for paranoid personality disorder, which the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) says “may be first apparent in childhood and adolescence with solitariness, poor peer relationships, social anxiety, underachievement in school, hypersensitivity, peculiar thoughts and language, and idiosyncratic fantasies.

'Bobby Fischer vs. the Rest of the World' was the title of an infamous 1974 book by Brad Darrach, who also wrote a series of articles on Fischer for Life magazine. 'Bobby Fischer Against the World' is the title of a documentary accepted for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival: A sad Portland-at-Sundance note: Karen Schmeer's last film. For more about the film, see its Facebook page.

And finally, going back a few months, Chessmoso reposted articles originally written for the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper: The Bobby Fischer saga continues and New twist on Jinky and Joey case. The 'Bobby Fischer saga' might never end.

***

Later: I wanted to link the mention of Brad Darrach's book to a recent essay by Edward Winter on Darrach but was unable to locate it on the Chesshistory.com site. Afterwards it occurred to me that the article had been published on Chessbase.com: Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (52), 'In 1975 Bobby Fischer filed a $20,000,000 libel suit over a book by Brad Darrach on the 1972 Spassky v Fischer world title match in Iceland. What were the rights and wrongs of the affair?'.

Najdorf 6.Be2

Before tackling the main question in Unzicker - Fischer, 1962 Varna, I decided to address Kasparov's notes on the opening. He first commented on the sequence 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e5 7.Nb3 (diagram) in his notes to the game Geller - Fischer, 1962 Curacao (2nd round), Predecessors II (p.308).

After 7.Nd4-b3

On 6.Be2, he quoted Mednis,

A deceptively quiet continuation, introduced by Smyslov and worked into a powerful weapon by Geller. White simply continues his development and is neutral about the Najdorf: neither trying to refute it nor being afraid.

I've also adopted the move when meeting the Najdorf. The games are generally fluid and don't result in the same sort of computer friendly tactics seen in other Najdorf continuations like 6.Bg5 and 6.Be3. Here are Kasparov's notes, abridged where I've used square brackets '[]'.

Geller - Fischer, 1962 Curacao: 7...Be7 ('The most accurate move order. The alternative of those years was 7...Be6 [...]') 8.O-O O-O ('Again the most accurate, although 8...Be6 9.f4 Qc7 is also played, not fearing 10.a4 [as in three games from the Karpov - Polugaevsky 1974 match; Kasparov gives three more alternatives to White's 10th from his own games]') 9.Be3 ('Currently the subtle 9.Kh1 is also in vogue, while Geller at the end of his career tried 9.Re1 with the idea of 9...Be6 10.Bf1 [...]') 9...Qc7?! ('The first steps in the theory of this variation: without f2-f4 having been played yet it is rather too early to determine the position of the Queen! 9...Be6 is correct, for example 10.a4 [...]. Later both Geller and his protege Karpov adopted 10.Qd2 [...]. 10.Nd5!? Nbd7 11.Qd3 Bxd5 12.exd5 gradually became the modern tabiya.' 10.a4.

The Curacao Candidates tournament preceded the Varna Olympiad.

Unzicker - Fischer, 1962 Varna: 7...Be6 ('Later it was established that 7...Be7! is more accurate. This, in particular, is what Fischer played against Geller in Stockholm and on Curacao.') 8.O-O ('The slightly premature Bishop sortie to e6 can be called into question by the energetic 8.f4 Qc7 9.g4') 8...Nbd7 9.f4 Qc7 10.f5 'The main plan at that time. By the mid-1970s White had switched to} 10.a4 Be7 11.Kh1!? (one of Geller's many ideas) -- this is a tabiya of the 1974 Candidates match Karpov - Polugaevsky.') 10...Bc4 11.a4 Be7 11...Rc8? [...] Black should keep his Rook on a8, so that after the typical ...b5 and the en passant capture a5xb6, the a6-Pawn is not hanging.') 12.Be3 ('In the following decade 12.Bg5 O-O appeared [...]') 12...O-O 13.a5 b5 14.axb6 Nxb6 ('A tabiya of 1962 -- and the entire decade! Bobby upheld it against both Tal and Geller on Curacao.')

Kasparov also covered the variation in Predecessors V (p.232), when he discussed the 1974 Karpov - Polugaevsky match.

Watching Paint Dry

Twenty-eight different shots of 1.e3...

e.g. top row left: Luke v Dougie - Game 1 © Flickr user djnisbet under Creative Commons.

...I don't get it. Do you?

Chigorin Played Correspondence Chess

You might expect eBay to have more items on offer during the runup to Christmas, and so it seems to be. In my fortnightly look at Top eBay Chess Items by Price, I saw some ferocious bidding on the same chess sets and other chess items that I've featured in the past, but one unique auction stood out from the rest.

The card pictured on the left was titled 'Russia Correspondence Chess Card M.Chigorin Signed 1901'. Although the starting price was only US $49.99, the card received 22 bids and ultimately sold for $1136. The description said,

The stationery postcard of the 7th Russian correspondence chess tournament. Posted from Gatchina in March 11, 1901 by famous Russian chess master Mikhail Chigorin, addressed to Vladimir Brzheski in St.Petersburg. There is no doubt authentic handwriting and signature of Mikhail Chigorin (1850-1908) leading Russian chess player of those days.

If the game lasted 40 moves, which is average for a game of chess, you can calculate yourself what the entire set of cards would be worth. Perhaps by sheer coincidence, perhaps not, the seller was the same bulkcover who was behind another recent post: There's Gold in Them Thar Score Sheets!. When bulkcover is involved, there's gold in them thar everything related to chess.

The Rybka Book

While researching the different computer assisted events listed in Chess of the Future -or- Chess of the Past?, the subject of engine oriented opening books appeared repeatedly. Normally, this isn't something I spend much time on. I would rather analyze the first few moves of a new chess960 position than the 25th move of a topical Najdorf variation. But since I play a dozen or so correspondence games per year using the traditional start position, I have to pay some attention to the evolution of opening books, engine or otherwise.

The computer assisted events use only the traditional start position, so prepared opening books play a key role. The dominant book is the Rybka book, just as the dominant engine is Rybka itself. The Rybka book played a role in the most recent World Championship match, Anand - Topalov, Sofia 2010, in the person of Jiri Dufek, who worked as one of Topalov's seconds. Given that Topalov lost the match, it's not certain whether Dufek's contribution was altogether positive, but we'll find out for sure if he remains on Topalov's team for the forthcoming candidate matches. I did a series on the subject of opening preparation earlier this year,

• World Championship Opening Preparation - Summary,

followed by a couple of short posts on the Sofia match, so the Rybka angle merits a seat at the table.

• World Championship Opening Preparation in 2010
  
• A Pre-Match Interview with Anand

The Rybka book is sold by both Chessbase and ChessOK (formerly Convekta), and while the book itself appears to be the same, the technical implementation isn't and may only be used with other products sold by the respective companies. I'll quote Chessbase marketing pages as examples in this post, because Chessbase has done a better job of recording its history and there are more pages. If we go back a couple of years, we find Jeroen Noomen doing the Jiri Dufek job.

• 2008-10-18: The Rybka Book – a treasure trove for tournament players, by Jeroen Noomen

A couple of years earlier there is a record of the first Rybka book.

• 2006-02-27: The official Rybka book: information and instructions, signed Jeroen Noomen; see '3. History', and
  
• 2006-05-07(++): Interview with Rybka opening book author, Jeroen Noomen

Along with details about opening book creation, the interview includes a brief mention of chess960, showing why engines are not particularly strong in chess960 openings.

Q: What do you think about Fischer random chess? A: Interesting experiment, but not exactly my cup of tea! One of the organizers of the Mainz tournament asked me to come to the FRC tournament that is being held, adding ‘don’t worry, you need not take your opening books with you’. So from move one the calculating starts, very boring for me!

Sometime after the release of the Rybka 3 book, Noomen left the Rybka team.

• 2009-05-19: Rybka wins 17th World Computer Chess Championship, Resumé by Rybka author Vasik Rajlich • Opening book: Nick Carlin handled our opening book, taking advantage of material previously published by Jeroen Noomen, and did really well. All of our book positions were equal or better, and all were complex and offered plenty of winning chances.
  
  Nick is from the new breed of computer chess opening authors, who rely on systematic, automated methods and on statistical analysis. He uses all of the available resources, from Jeroen's work to Playchess games to Aquarium editing tools to Polyglot. For this event, he made algorithmic innovations in the area of sharpening the book exit points – his aim was to drop Rybka off into rich positions with plenty of winning chances, and to prevent opposing authors from doing the opposite. Judging by the games, these methods work quite well.
  
  Unfortunately, Nick has decided to take an extended break from computer chess after these events, as the time required to stay on top of everything is just too high for him. Jeroen is also still taking a break after his last book release and has started to apply his skills to the stock market – hopefully he will soon be rich and will then return to what is best in life. All of this should underline just how much work is involved in the book preparation. The responsibility is high, as one mistake can spoil an entire event and wipe out the work of everyone on the team. Modern opening theory is simply a huge load and we will have to think about how to handle it.

And some time later Jiri Dufek took over the position.

• 2010-05-31: Rybka 4 is here – and stronger than ever • As for the opening book – Jiri Dufek is the author of the Rybka 4 opening book. He's been using Lukas' cluster to analyze and test and this book is much deeper and more accurate than every book which is publicly available right now. Note however that this book will be 'objective' – Jiri's goal has been to find the truth, rather than to find variations which suit Rybka. This is an intentional decision by our team. Our goal is to create objective analysis tools. This is what users want, and it also simplifies Jiri's life somewhat, as he doesn't have to worry about things like how Rybka is evolving.

He recorded his thoughts in a pair of Chessbase articles.

• 2010-06-21: The Rybka4 Book – a treasure trove for tournament players, see 'Interview with Jiri Dufek', and
  
• 2010-06-28: The Rybka4 Book – a treasure trove for tournament players (Part 2), with sample novelties from the Rybka 4 book.

All of this confirms my personal decision to leave engine oriented opening books to the experts. Whether the calculating starts on move one or on move 25, it's all the same for me. I'd rather chew my food myself.