Feb 222011
 

Valeri Salov: "Not a man who takes his luncheon seriously!"

In today’s post we welcome back Colonel Walter Polhill (RTD) to our humble blog. The Colonel wrote a series of erudite articles for The Independent on Sunday back in the late 90’s and yours truly has excavated them, dusted them down and now presents once more for your enlightenment. In this article the Colonel tackles the knotty issue of opening theory and reveals the real reason why so many Grand Master games follow the opening books for so many moves.

The true value of opening theory is not generally understood. Studying the opening to such a degree that one may reel off a dozen or 20 moves by rote is, above all, an aid to digestion. Some tournament organisers, for reasons best known to themselves, insist on starting play in the very early afternoon. This presents a stark choice: forgo lunch, risk indigestion by attempting to think too soon after a meal, or rely on opening theory until the meal is digested.”

 

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Feb 162011
 
H.G.Wells, a chess miserablist

“The true sweetness of chess, if it can ever be called sweet, is to see a victory snatched, by some happy impertinence out of the shadows of apparently irrevocable disaster.” – H.G.Wells

Lucky Sweatshirt Chronicles – Chapter 2

Readers may well remember that last November I posted my theory about an old grey sweatshirt that I possess which I believe may have mysteriously acquired magical properties. On that occasion I published some statistical analysis that seemed to indicate that my thesis was more than a passing fancy. At the time I also suggested that, having made my madcap ideas public, I would surely go down in flames in my next match whilst wearing the sweatshirt. As it turned out it wasn’t the next game but it did happen shortly afterwards and I consigned my superstitions to the waste paper basket of history.

How could I have been so rash? I have surely paid the price for my lack of faith. Since this poor result in the sweatshirt back in December I have had a pretty awful run of results which, I ashamed to say, has seen me score a miserable 4 out of 9. This sequence included a series of games where I scored a mere ½ point from 5 games. Such misery has befallen me and I have surely brought it upon myself!

Within this rather glum period though, there has been one bright spot. In January I played another round of the Leeds Rapidplay League and, feeling that a change in time limits might be just the thing to bring about a change of form as well, I donned the old grey sweatshirt (with no expectations whatsoever) and sallied forth to do battle against the league leaders, Hepworth Browne. With an International Master on board 1 and two very strong players on boards 2 and 3, our opponents were clear favorites for victory and indeed they did win comfortably in the event by a score of 4-2. But, guess what? I scored the two points and with a couple of nice efforts as well.


It’s back and it smells of concentration!



In the first game I had the Black pieces and straightaway could sense that I might be about to have a good night when my opponent allowed me to play one of my pet openings, the Budapest Gambit. The game continued in a fairly thematic fashion but White allowed me to grab first his h and then his e-pawns as I got a decent advantage. This came at a cost however as I got behind on the clock with plenty of complexity still in the position. In the game viewer below we join the action in the critical position after White has played his 31st move but the whole game can be played through from the start if you wish to see how the story unfolded.



The second game began shortly afterwards and at this point I realised that our opponents had been particularly cunning because my adversary from the first game now deferred to another player who now conducted the Black pieces against me. There is nothing in the rules to prevent a team from doing this, the only question was, would this fresh player have an advantage of not having had to suffer the stress of game one, or would he come to the game a bit cold? As it turned out I got yet another opening line that I felt comfortable with (this time the White side of a Petroff’s Defence) and when my opponent played a little inaccurately in the opening I was able to build up a decent advantage which I converted much more attractively than I could have expected to had I not been in the sweatshirt. Once again the critical position is shown in the game viewer below but the whole game is also available.

The power of the lucky sweatshirt had inspired me that evening at Hepworth Browne but this was a rapidplay game and I stubbornly passed off my success in the garment as being a fluke. In my next few standard time limit league matches my poor form continued. And then, last Wednesday night, the incident that will become known only as “The Miracle of Alwoodley” happened.

On this occasion I deliberately took the sweatshirt to work with me so that I could change into it before my Leeds League match against Alwoodley A who are top of the division and very strong. I had played my board 3 opponent in the corresponding home fixture earlier in the season and he had pasted me. The likelihood was that he would do so again and so I thought “I may as well put the sweatshirt on. I’ll need all the luck I can get”. Boy oh boy, did I get some luck!

The game viewer below shows the position at time control on move 35. I had strained every sinew to withstand my opponents nagging pressure and had got into severe timetrouble. I just made the time control but by that point I had lost control of the position on the board and all looked lost. What is more, the rest of my team, having mostly been soundly thrashed, were loitering in the bar and had left me to my agonies. They probably thought I’d be dead in another 5 minutes.

How to explain this extraordinary turn around? I was even winning at the end but we both had seconds on our clocks and I didn’t want to risk losing the whole point again. Surely, the only explaination for my opponents uncharacteristic meltdown was the lucky sweatshirt. A happy impertinence indeed! Watch this space for further adventures with the dirty old sweatshirt.

Feb 112011
 

Last week I posted a problem that I suggested could be the hardest in the world. (I have re-published the post this week as several readers reported that a glitch in the previous version meant that the starting position was not shown!) Being as the solution broke the current laws of chess it isn’t surprising that even the strongest of chess engines would be unable to find it.

This week I would like to continue in a similar vein and also add some tasty nik-naks to the castling theme that I started to develop in two posts from last year “Castle because you have to, not because you can”, and “When castling goes bad!”. Take a look at the composition below by Tim Krabbé. It is White to play and mate in 3 moves and the solution involves several castling manouevres, some more conventional than others! I’ll give the solution at the end of this post.



White to play and mate in 3 by Tim Krabbé


Before we go any further I should say a little bit more about the source of today’s content. I recently discovered Tim Krabbé’s website, Chess Curiosities. It is all about the beauty of chess and, even though he stopped posting frequently a while ago there is a veritable tresure trove of content to be found within its bowels. Krabbé is Dutch and is a modern day polymath in that he is a novelist, journalist, cyclist (he rode competatively I believe) and a very strong chess player (he was in the Dutch top 20 back in the 70’s). He is probably most well known over here in the UK for his novel “Het Gouden Ei” (“The Golden Egg”) which was re-made as a Hollywood film “The Vanishing” in 1993. For film officionados though, the original Dutch version of the film (called “Spoorloos” – “Traceless”), made in 1988 by the same Director, George Sluizer, is rather better than the remake.

One particluarly interesting aspect of Chess Curiosities is Krabbé’s unofficial collection of chess records which he has compiled with the help of his readers and contacts. Included in the list is the record for the latest castling which is actually shared by the two games below.



Somogyi vs. Black, New York 2002
48…0-0-0



Neshewat vs Garrison, Detroit 1994.
48…0-0

 Of course there are certainly games that will have involved later castlings than these two but these are the latest instances where the games can be qualified due to their being “serious and verifiable tournament games” as Krabbé defines them. Elsewhere in his “Open Chess Diary”  Krabbé provides another game that not only looks like a later instance of castling but also involves a nice little combination. The problem is that the game was a blitz game and therefore the exact move number and veracity of the position cannot be proven. The combination is unusual and witty so it is still worth re-publishing here.

Anon vs. Macieja, Blitz Game, Poland

In the position on the left White played.

1.Rxb7 …

and offered a draw. However, Black then gave his opponent a nasty surprise in the form of…

2…      Nc5+!!
3.dxc5 0-0-0+

and now White was forced to resign.


So, finally, let’s return to Krabbé’s mate in 3 problem which he composed in 1972 and utilises three (!) different castling manouevres to give mate in the three different lines.




White to play and mate in 3

 The lines go:

a.) 1.e7 Kd3 2.e8=Q gxf3 3.O-O-O mate
b.) 1.e7 Kxf3 2.e8=R! d4 3.O-O mate
c.) 1.e7 Kxf3 2.e8=R! Kg2 3.O-O-O-O-O-O! mate

In the last variation White utilises a loophole that then existed in the definition of castling. He castles withisnewly promoted rook, moving his king to e3 and the rook to e2. Under the rules of chess at the time this problem was created this move was legal because neither the king nor the rook had moved yet. Afterwards, FIDE amended their rules to require that the castling rook must occupy the same rank as the king. A very unusual and witty little problem!

Come back to this blog next week for coverage of what promises to be a very exciting 4th round of this year’s Calderdale Individual Championship. I am also promising readers an update on the “Lucky Sweatshirt” saga!

Feb 012011
 

Hebden Bridge Chess Club members will be well acquainted with my passion for digging up chess curiosities from across the ‘interweb’. Recently I came across the perplexing puzzle below. It’s White to play and mate in 1.

White to play and mate in 1

Yes, in 1! Try putting that one through your computer and it will fry it’s chips before it finds the answer. If I told you that the solution is a VERY unusual move that is no longer strictly within the bounds of the rules of the game then that might help you a little bit. The solution will be revealed at the bottom of this post.

Anyway, the legend around this particular problem is shrouded in mystery. No-one knows who composed it, nor do they know when, but it is evident that this puzzle pre-dates the publication of FIDE’s official rules of the game (another little clue there).

As usual, I was not satisfied with this lack of provenance and so, having tried to cultivate a lead from the internet and failed, I turned to this blog’s old friend and oracle on chess history, the Duchess of Blunderboro, to see if she might be able to provide me with a clue. So, last week I sent her an instant message with the problem attached. Here is how our chat developed:

Intermezzo: Hi Duchess. Any idea who composed this problem?

Duchess: Oh yes! That one is one of Grand Fathers. It’s a funny story actually.

Intermezzo: Wow! Care to elaborate for me? How about a blog post?

Duchess: Certainly!

So, without further ado, I’ll hand over to the Duchess, who will explain all.

The Duchess of Blunderboro

“I first encountered this position in June 1937 and I was 15 years old. It was a warm summer’s day. I had taken my chess set out to the conservatory and was thumbing through one of my Grandfathers old score books in a bid to convince my Father that I was taking my chess education seriously. I had idly played through several games without taking too much time to consider the ideas behind the moves when I reached the final stages of the game in which the position in question appeared. Noticing that the game lasted only a few moves more I paused for a moment to visualise them as I couldn’t be bothered to play them out over the board. As I did this a voice from just behind me said “There’s an amusing story behind that position”.

Jumping with the shock of the sudden interruption, I turned to see that Daddy had sneaked up behind me and was smiling at the recollection of some long distant memory. “It looks like a perfectly straightforward position to me. Black should really have resigned long ago” I observed a little put out that I was being spied upon.

“I’d have to agree with you,” said my Father as he moved round the table to sit down opposite me. “But how about if I told you that Granddad had missed a very unusual and extremely witty mate in one in this very position?”

A cursory glance at the board told me that there was no such mate in one. “Impossible!” I announced. There is no way for White to mate in one move, even by some such sneaky means as an under promotion.”

“Again, I agree with you,” my Father beamed back, “and so did Granddad. But when you’ve been told that there is a mate in one by non-other than the great Adolf Anderrsen, you have to take it seriously.”

“What? “ I spluttered. “Anderssen saw this game and found mate in one?”


The Cafe de la Regence


“Indeed he did,” confirmed my Father. “Your Granddad played this game in Paris at the Café de la Regence in 1878. It was a casual game against a fellow of no particular consequence but, as was his habit in those days, he recorded the score so that he could study the game at a later date. It just so happened that there was a big international tournament taking place in Paris at that time and consequently several of the world’s best were taking their leisure in the café which was renowned as a venue for chess playing. Anderssen, who was nearly 60 years old at that point and competing in what turned out to be his last tournament, happened to be one of small group kibitzing Granddad’s game right at it’s very end and had had a joke with him at it’s conclusion saying

Adolf Anderssen in later life

“Did you know that you missed a very amusing check mate in one a couple of moves before the end?”

Your Granddad had been dumbstruck as he well knew who Anderssen was but was totally convinced that no such mate existed so he didn’t know how to respond. Anderssen had quickly set up the crucial position on the board again and then said.

“The solution really is most unusual. In fact I’d say it would make a striking problem. Check mate in one move. Can you find it?”

Your Granddad told me that he, his opponent and the growing group of kibitzers stared in stunned silence for a couple of minutes trying to find the answer. After a while it became evident that they couldn’t do it so, quietly, Anderssen reached across the board and pushed the White pawn to b8. He then picked it up and replaced with… a black knight!”

As he said these words my Father replicated the great man’s actions, under promoting the pawn to a black knight. He chuckled merrily as he did so. I starred open mouthed in amazement for it was, undeniably, checkmate.

1. b8=N (black) and check mate!
“But, surely that’s illegal,” I stammered.



“Yet again, I must agree with you,” laughed my Father. “But in fact, at the time this game was played there was no specific rule stating that a pawn had to be promoted to a piece of the same colour!”

So, this then is the story behind the position which has since become known a chess problem of unknown origin. For myself I like to think that the origin was Anderssen himself for he was a renowned composer to chess problems and had said himself that the position would have made a striking puzzle. Being as he died not long after the Paris tournament I often imagine that this position might have been found amongst his documents after he died unpublished and uncredited. This is fanciful of me perhaps, but it’s plausible.”

Thanks, as ever, go to the Duchess for bringing us this ‘exclusive’ story. As a final note on this, the hardest of chess problems, I should add that FIDE’s official rules require that a pawn on the eighth rank must promote to a piece of the same colour



Jan 042011
 
The Temple of Apollo at Delphi where the famous
aphorism was inscribed

Happy New Year chess friends! I hope that you enjoyed the festive period and didn’t get too many chess withdrawal symptoms. As 2011 dawns many of us will be reflecting on the year just gone and the new one that is ahead. In that spirit of reflection (and baring in mind the wise words of the Oracle of Delphi – “Know thyself”today I offer readers a timely opportunity to assess their chess style in preparation for the battles that await.

At this blog we do our upmost to bring Hebden Bridge Chess Club members the very finest and most interesting chess related curios from wherever they may be found. A little while ago I stumbled upon this survey which is designed to help you test your aggression levels at the chess board. It was originally published in chess magazine ‘The Gambit’ (the quarterly publication of the North Carolina Chess Association) in the May-June,1990 issue. To spice the fun up further I’ve added in some fun chess cartoons that I accumulated recently.

“We all know that chess is a war game, and while some of us go at it on the boards like cerebral Rambos (nice oxymoron, that) others play like, well, George McGoverns. Just how aggressive are you? Do you go for broke or wait for your opponent to make that big mistake? The following test is scientifically designed to rank your aggressive tendencies on the board. Total the numbers at the end of the text to put yourself between Morphy and Steinitz.”

1.) Early in the game, your opponent collapses of an apparent heart attack. His wife and children gather round, and after exchanging tearful farewells with them, he looks up, and with life fading from his eyes, asks you for a draw. In response, you:

a.) Accept immediately
b.) Analyze the position on the board first
c.) Ask the TD to get a doctor to confirm that he isn’t faking it
d.) Tell him that you wouldn’t give a draw to your dying mother, whom you love
e.) Try to push him over the edge by announcing mate in three

cheSS by Gamez

2.) When psyching yourself up for a game, you visualise yourself:

a.) Crushing your opponent’s pieces with a hammer
b.) Rolling hand grenades into your opponent’s king’s side
c.) Strangling your opponent with your bare hands
d.) Ransacking his village and carrying off his women

3.) You view your opponent’s pawns as:

a.) Potential queens
b.) The shape of his position
c.) Juicy morsels to be gobbled up
d.) Speed bumps

4.) You view your own pawns as:

a.) Potential queens
b.) An integral part of your strategy
c.) Expendables in your king’s side attacks
d.) Howitzer shells

5.) You will consider a pawn rush only:

a.) When you have safely castled on the opposite wing
b.) When playing a lower rated player
c.) When you have more than a piece advantage
d.) When it’s your turn to move

6.) Endgames are:

a.) When the queens are off the board
b.) Sometimes unavoidable
c.) When your opponent won’t resign

d.) For weenies who can’t finish off their opponents in the middlegame
From Cartoon Stock

7.) You are playing an 8 year old, who leaves his queen hanging in a complex position. He begins to cry. Your response is:

a.) Offer to stop the clock while he regains his composure
b.) Capture the queen without comment
c.) Pick up the queen with a chuckle and remark, ”Won’t be long now!”
d.) Call the child’s mother over and tell her to take her baby home, because he’s not ready to be a chess player

8.) After leaving your own queen hanging against an 8 year old you would:

a.) Resign gratefully and offer congratulations for a great win
b.) Smile knowingly and bluff him into not capturing her
c.) Announce mate in nine
d.) Tell him of an obscure rule about taking back moves that he’s too young to know about

Chess by Jan Tomaschoff

9.) You will only sacrifice your queen only:

a.) When you see a forced mate
b.) As a last attempt in a lost position
c.) For an overwhelming positional advantage
d.) When she hasn’t been active enough (use it or lose it baby!)

10.) For an open file on your opponent’s king’s side you would sacrifice:

a.) A pawn
b.) A minor piece
c.) A major piece
d.) Your soul

11.) You might consider playing Alekhine’s Defence (1.e4 Nf6) when:

a.) Playing against 1.e4
b.) Playing against someone you knew was unbooked
c.) Playing a non-tournament game
d.) You’ve had a mind-crippling stroke

Chess by tinotoons

12.) When you first spot a winning combination, you:

a.) Look for ways your opponent can get out of it
b.) Look at your clock to see how much time you can spend checking it out
c.) Giggle uncontrollably
d.) Drool

Now that you’ve picked your answers tally up your score by selecting the appropriate value for each of your answers.

1: A=0, B=1, C=2, D=4, E=7
2: A=2, B=3, C=3, D=5
3: A=0, B=1, C=3, D=6
4: A=0, B=1, C=2, D=5
5: A=0, B=2, C=3, D=5
6: A=0, B=3, C=4, D=6
7: A=0, B=1, C=4, D=5
8: A=0, B=1, C=3, D=4
9: A=0, B=1, C=3, D=5
10: A=0, B=1, C=3, D=5
11: A=0, B=1, C=2, D=4
12: A=0, B=1, C=3, D=5

Now find out what kind of player you are below.

Score of 0-10: You are a Conscientious Objector
You are a pacifist in the war game of chess. Negotiating a draw is your biggest thrill. Should you accidentally win, you feel obliged to buy them lunch or give them some other form of foreign aid.

Score of 11 to 30: You are an Innocent Bystander
You’ll pick up wins if they fall into your lap (and happen to stick). You look for traps in a mate in one.

Score 31 to 50: You are a Reluctant Aggressor
The George Bush (post thyroid treatment) of the Royal Game. You’ll do the “aggression thing” when backed into a corner, or when your wife tells you its time to leave and you can finish your stupid game. (Yes dear).

Score 51 to 62: You are a Psycho
A danger to yourself and others. You don’t play defences, just offenses minus the tempo. You like lines with names like “the can opener”, “the beserker” or “the long whip variation”. At home you kill small animals or unrated players for fun.

Dec 242010
 



Graham Garden and Barry Cryer are regular
panelists on “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue”

When it’s on, I’m a regular listener of “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue” on Radio 4. For those who aren’t familiar with the show contestants are invited to take part in numerous silly games. One game that features regularly is the “Book Club” or “Film Festival” idea. In this game the teams were asked to suggest titles for (for example) a “Car Mechanics Film Festival”. Titles such as “Daewoo of the Jackal” might be suggested. Listening to an old show earlier this month got me thinking about what some of the suggestions for a “Chess Players Film Festival” would be.

After coming up with a few suggestions below to get things started I decided to set readers here a festive challenge. The question is: “What films might feature at the chess players film festival” (You aren’t allowed to have films that are actually about chess!)

Here are a few of my suggestions:
Generally:
  • Any black and white film
  • Any porn film
  • Any film by J Arthur Rank
 Some film titles that will do just as they are:
  • The Ipcress File
  • When We Were Kings
  • Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
  • Clockers
  • The French Connection
  • The Pelikan Brief

Some films titles that need a little creative amendment:

  • The Magnificent Mate in 7
  • Mating Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
  • Knight of the Living Dead
  • Dungeons and Sicilian Dragons
  • Taimanov Bandits
  • Gentle Benoni
  • Two Knights Tango in Paris
  • Kasparov the Friendly Ghost
There must be zillions more! Please post your suggestions as comments here or e-mail them to me. I am offering an exclusive book prize (kindly donated by an anonymous club member) for those who offer the most creative suggestions!

That just leaves me to say “Merry Christmas” to one and all. Have a great time and I’ll see you in the New Year.

Nov 182010
 

Did Lenin and Hitler face off over this chess board?

Like many chess enthusiasts I was interested to see some news coverage (just over a year ago) about an etching from the 1900’s of Hitler and Lenin playing chess together. Well, the story has now been resurrected from the bowels of the internet by Telegraph journalist, Guy Walters. Evidently both the etching, and the chess set that the two men are supposed to have contested said game upon, are being auctioned by Mullocks in London today. If you have a spare £10,000 or so, you might fancy bidding.

For the historians out there I suppose that the debate about the provenance of these artifacts is all very interesting but as a chess player what I’m really interested in is the missing piece of the puzzle. I am talking of course about the scoresheet for the game which would surely refute any lingering doubts about the authenticity of the other items. Not only would the missing scoresheet add exponential value to the board and the picture it would also answer the crucial questions that every chess player really wants to know the answers to. “Who won the game and what moves were played?”

Fortunately for you dear reader the answer to these tantalising questions is close at hand for, in the year or so since the story first came to my attention, I have been conducting my own investigations into this fabled over-the-board encounter. I must confess that for a long time my best efforts were totally ineffectual but then, quite by chance only a few weeks ago, after a pleasant exchange of banter with someone I played a game against online, I stumbled across our humble blog’s first exclusive scoop!

You see, the person I had been playing against turned out to be none other than Lady Cynthia Blunderboro whose Father, Horace (the 4th Duke), was instrumental in organising the game and was actually present when it was played. Most importantly of all however, he kept Hitler’s copy of the score sheet! A player of no little ability herself, Lady Cynthia has kindly agreed to re-tell the story of the game and provide some commentary on the moves exclusively for this blog.

I must confess that I was rather surprised when Intermezzo mentioned the sudden appearance of the Lenin and Hitler etching and chess set during the course of our online chat. I say this only because I had hitherto assumed that the encounter was common knowledge. Daddy first told me the story when I was a teenager and I remember the morning vividly. It was the 31st of January, 1933 and Adolf Hitler had just swept to power in Germany. Daddy had almost choked on his toast when he read the story about it in that morning’s newspaper.

“Good God!” he spluttered “who would have thought it possible?”

Naturally, I had enquired as to the nature of his outbourst and he quickly explained that “young Addy” had been an acquaintance of his during his time at the British Consulate in Vienna during the early 1900’s. He went on to recount that they had met at a chess club (he forgot which!) and played a few friendly games. Despite the fact that Daddy described the then 20-year-old as “an uncouth and loutish layabout with absolutely no class whatsoever” the two of them became regular playing partners. In fact I suspect that Daddy only tolerated Hitler’s company because he was rather easy to beat.

On one such night of contemplation Hitler prevailed upon my Father on the subject of political dogma which, even then, was a favourite hobby horse of his. At some point, quite inadvertently, Daddy found himself proclaiming that some of his “best friends” were political thinkers. By the end of the evening (and, I fancy, rather too much schnapps!) Daddy found that he had agreed to introduce Hitler to Lenin the next time the latter was in town. Never one to let anyone renege on a promise, Hitler pestered my Father remorselessly until the meeting had been arranged, the more so when he discovered that Lenin was a keen and very proficient chess player.

Finally, and after much pulling of strings, Daddy managed to arrange for the pair to meet and play a game of chess as the pretext to an “intellectual discourse” on the merits of Bolshevism. I should add that in order to achieve this he had to considerably over-inflate both Hitler’s chess playing strength and his intellectual regard for Lenin. The two men met at the home of a prominent Viennese Jew who knew Lenin well and who owed my father several quite large favours. Daddy described to me that on the night of the encounter, after the exchange of some brief and rather stiff pleasantries, it was agreed that the game of chess should take place immediately.

By means of a closing remark I should mention that Daddy only saw Hitler once more after that night in 1909 and on that occasion Hitler went so far as to cross the street to avoid having to talk to him. Daddy later told me that he didn’t even recall having kept Hitler’s scoresheet from that night until, many years later, he was turning out the pockets of a very old smoking jacket in search of a telegram from the King that he had misplaced. His search for the telegram was unsuccessful but he did turn up two fluff covered lemon drops, a saucy picture postcard and Hitler’s scoresheet.”