What Opening or Defense Should You Play?

      There is an interesting Webpage I recently came across on opening statistics. These statistics show the percentages of games won by white and black and the amount of games drawn from over 2 million games for 60 of the most common openings and 230 further variations of those openings. This page should give you a good idea of what openings and variations are the most successful for white and black. There is also a written summary below the table that summarizes all the best and worst variations in the table. As well as that there are lists of the top 10 best and worst openings for white and black and the most and least drawn openings.
      Of course results depend on a lot of factors, skill and knowledge being a couple of big ones, but if you just want to go by database statistics, take a look at the chart. Of course the results are probably skewed by the inclusion of games by low rated players, but that doesn’t matter because few of us will be meeting GM’s any time soon.

World Championship Fiasco

      To be honest I haven’t followed a world championship match since Fischer-Spassky. Oh, I followed the off the board politics of the K-K matches and the shenanigans of Toilet Gate, but all the other ones didn't interest me...especially those ridiculous knockout events.
      This last one didn’t interest me either...too short and decided by rapid/blitz games. Really?! Some posters on one forum complained the match was rigged. The comment I liked the best was the one by the fellow who said he felt like was watching a WWE/WWF wrestling match, where the script is pre-written. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say the games/match was faked, but I like the comparison. Take the following gem.

Classic Tarjan

I’ve posted about Tarjan before.  Here’s one of his typical slashing attacks I came across the other day.  Larry Gilden was another promising player of the day who also dropped out of chess.

How to use a database

This video by Majnu is very instructive.

Caissa's Web Game Viewer Test

This is just a test to see how I like this game viewer.

Play Online Chess

[Event "Golden Knights Final"]
[Site "Correspondence"]
[Date "1968"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Tartajubow"]
[Black "Seedorf"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO ""]
[BlackELO ""]
[ECO "B98"]
[PlyCount "59"]
[EventDate "1968.??.??"]
[EventType "schev (corr)"]
[EventRounds "4"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8.
Qd3 Nbd7 9. O-O-O e5 10. Nf5 O-O 11. Bh6 Nh5 12. Be2 Bf6 13. Bxh5 gxh6 14.
Nd5 Nc5 15. Qg3+ Kh8 16. Nxf6 Bxf5 17. fxe5 Nxe4 18. Qf4 Nxf6 19. exf6 Qc8
20. Rd2 Be6 21. Re1 d5 22. Bf3 Qc6 23. Re5 Rad8 24. Qxh6 Rg8 25. Rh5 Bf5 26.
Rxf5 Rg6 27. Qh4 Qe6 28. Be4 Rd6 29. Rh5 Qxf6 30. Rxh7+ 1-0

Me vs. Nook Color Chess App

       If you are like me, the wife has denied me television remote privileges between the hours of 6pm and 10pm on most nights which means watching stuff like So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Got (no) Talent and a series of movies where women always seem to be killing their husbands on the LMN channel.  This is where the chess app on my Nook comes in handy.
      The Barnes and Noble Nook Color and the Tablet have a chess program pre-installed.  The program is limited to just a few difficulty levels (beginner, intermediate, and expert) and you can’t make moves for both sides.  Thus you are limited to just playing games against the program.  The time controls are none, 5, 10 and 15 minutes and can be set for one or both sides. Also, I’ve noticed that, at least at the 5 minute level, it frequently exceeds the time limit.
       Despite these limitations it does play a decent game and is handy for those idle moments when you have nothing better to do…like being compelled to watch stuff like I just described on tv, waiting in the dentist’s office to get your teeth cleaned or perhaps even while sitting on the john.
       Just for fun here’s a game I played against it.  In order to give me time to write down the moves, I set my time for 10 min. and the program for 5 min.  As you will see, it didn’t have much feel for the position and it made quite a few tactical mistakes when it got short of time but, all-in-all, it can challenge you.

Advanced Chess and a Tartajubow Rant

 Advanced Chess is a form of chess where the human players use an engine during the game.   It was first suggested by Kasparov as a way to increase the level of play. Kasparov’s idea was first tested in 1998 in Leon, Spain in a match against Topalov. Kasparov used Fritz 5 and Topalov used ChessBase 7.0 with both using engines Fritz, HIARCS and Junior. It was a 6-game match and they were allowed to consult the million game database only for the 3rd and 4th game.  The T/L was game 60 and the match ended in a 3-3 tie.

       After the match, Kasparov said:"My prediction seems to be true that in Advanced Chess it's all over once someone gets a won position. This experiment was exciting and helped spectators understand what's going on. It was quite enjoyable and will take a very big and prestigious place in the history of chess."
       World Champion Anand was considered the world's best Advanced Chess player, winning the three consecutive Advanced Chess tournaments in Leon in 1999, 2000 and 2001, before losing the title to Kramnik in 2002. After the loss Anand said: "I think in general people tend to overestimate the importance of the computer in the competitions. You can do a lot of things with the computer but you still have to play good chess. I more or less managed to do so except for this third game. In such a short match, against a very solid and hard to beat opponent, this turned out to be too much but I don’t really feel like that the computer alone can change the objective true to the position."  Of course, engine strength has improved greatly since then, but the point is still valid.
      There is a debate going raging on one of the forums about the legitimacy of players using an engine during the game.  Whenever this subject comes up, in the words of Bernie Mac, “It makes my butt itch.”
       During these debates, I always see comments like, it will be a match between computers, might as well let sprinters ride motorcycles, computers should only be used as tools, humans are restricted to shuffling pieces, it is disgusting and primitive, a computer does not give you reasons why it has played a move, computers ruin chess and the ubiquitous, you don’t learn anything that way.
       These people are missing the point.  It does not matter how disgusted they are with the use of engines in correspondence chess, which most of them don’t play anyway, because chess engines are here to stay and, like opening books, they are going to be used in correspondence play no matter what the rules say.  That’s why the official correspondence governing body, the ICCF, has no rules against their use. To use an engine in an organization that does not permit their use is cheating.
       This brings up another point…some of these people apparently do not understand the meaning of cheating.  By definition, cheating is a deliberate violation of the rules or other unethical behavior that is intended to give a person an unfair advantage.
       In OTB chess, cheating could be consultation with spectators or other players, computer use, rating manipulation, pre-arranged draws, etc.  In CC it would be anything that is against the organization’s rules, including consulting engines and tablebases.  If you are not violating the organization’s rules, you are not cheating…duh!
       As for the other arguments, Advanced Chess is nothing more than another variation of the game just like blitz, Fischer Random Chess or blindfold play.  In AC both players have agreed to use an engine to assist them.  My suggestion is that if you don’t like this kind of chess, then just ignore it.
       Ever since I can remember CC has not been considered real chess by OTB players. I remember a case years ago where a TD announced free entry for titled players and when a CC GM showed up asking for his free entry, he was denied because a CC title didn’t count.  In my own experience, I once had a game published in Chess Review magazine and annotated by John W. Collins.  Naturally, I was pretty proud of it but when I went to the chess club not one person had seen it and even my 10-12 correspondence opponents didn’t see it except for one and all he said was, “Saw your game.”  Hardly anybody pays attention to correspondence, blitz, blindfold, handicap, FRC or Advanced Chess games.  So, what’s the big deal if some people want to play AC or correspondence chess where engines are used?
       Another point is that in high level CC tournaments some players win almost all of their games and there is always some unfortunate soul who loses most of his games.  If engines were the only factor involved that would not be the case.  Engines make mistakes too else they would not beat each other. No, the difference is the human.  But, the guys who win those tournaments are GOOD.  If buying an engine was all it took to play at their level, I’d be blogging about my games in the World Correspondence Championship.
       The comment that really gives me a chuckle though is the one, “You don’t learn anything.”  What in the world makes these guys think that people who use engines are trying to learn anything?  One’s study is usually independent of tournament play be it correspondence, otb or Internet.  Certainly a person using an engine to win hundreds of blitz games on the Internet or trying to see how high of a rating he can get on a site that disallows engine use cannot be interested in learning anything.  He is motivated by other reasons, whatever they may be.
       Many players  seem to think playing hundreds of blitz games against dumbed down engines or blunderchecking with Fritz at 10 seconds a move is studying, but it’s not.  In pre-computer days, studying meant buying chess books and subscribing to magazines so you could receive instruction and play over games.  You kept notebooks and index cards on openings.  If you wanted to know about strategic or tactical themes you had to painstakingly search through games in your books to find examples. That's why the Informants were so popular. Nowadays you can do it in minutes on the computer.  But it’s the careful study of those games that yields results.  When it comes to playing over games on the computer there are different schools of thought on the benefits.  Some think it’s easier and more efficient.  GM Alex Yermolinksy disagreed stating he felt that physically moving pieces on a real board helped reinforce learning and visualization. 
       It seems these days though there are a lot of players who have never played in a tournament, know nothing about the history of chess players and approach chess as a video game played on a computer screen.  There is nothing wrong with that if they are having fun.  Likewise the same applies to any other form of chess you choose to play.  None of us are professional players and none of will ever, as old people used to say, ‘amount to a hill of beans.’  Not in the chess world anyway so play chess in whatever form you enjoy and let others do the same. 

Is Anand the Gretest Player Ever?

       Anand, the world`s best rapid player, just won the World Championship for the fifth time.  He first won the World Championship title in 2000 defeating Alexei Shirov then came wins in 2007, 2008, 2010 and now in 2012.

       In addition, Anand has six chess Oscars: 1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008  Oscars are awards won by poll votes from the global chess fraternity, including players and writers across the world.
       Anand`s early success came in 1983 at the age of 14 when he scored 9 out of 9 in the National Sub-Junior Championship and a year later became the youngest Indian to win the IM at the age of fifteen in 1984.  By 16, he was the National Champion and he won it twice more before moving on to fry bigger fish in international competition.
       Anand is known for playing at great speed earning him the nicknames of `Lightning Kid` and `Tiger from Madras.`  In 1987 he became the first Indian to win the World Junior Chess Championship and in 1988, at 18, he earned three GM norms within a span of less than 12 months, becoming India’s first GM in December.  After that his ascent was spectacular.
       His first big moment came at Reggio Emilia in 1991 where he finished ahead of Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov.  That same year he lost on tie-breaks to Karpov in the quarter finals of those stupid FIDE Knockout World Chess Championships.    
       In Kasparov’s ill-fated Professional Chess Association he reached the final where he lost to Kasparov in New York City`s World Trade Center.  After eight draws, Anand won the ninth game but then disaster struck when Kasparov came back and won four of the next five games and went on to win the match 10.5-7.5. 
       In 2000 Kasparov and Kramnik didn’t participate in the world championships and Anand won in New Delhi and Tehran but nobody was really too impressed because most players consider classical match play to be the ‘real’ test. Still, Anand continued to dominate on the tournament circuit and won ‘Advanced Chess’ tournaments in Leon, Spain, 11 times.  His five successes at Wijk Aan Zee set a record.
       In 2007, he won Linares where the world`s top players participated…Kasparov had retired by then. However, the critics were still claiming Anand had not won a title in match play so he ended up playing the man who had dethroned Kasparov, Kramnik.
      This match was one in which, as previous world champion, Kramnik had been given the right to challenge to regain his title. By winning this match, Anand cemented the legitimacy of his World Championship status.
      Anand is the only player to have won the world title in three formats. In 2003 FIDE organized a rapid tournament in Cap d`Agde and called it as the World Rapid Chess Championship. Each player had 25 minutes at the start of the game, with an additional 10 seconds after each move. Anand won this event ahead of ten of the other top 12 players in the world. 
     Apart from his chess achievements Anand has been awarded the Arjuna award for Outstanding Indian Sportsman in Chess, the Padma Shri, National Citizens Award and Soviet Land Nehru Award, the inaugural Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, India`s highest sporting honour. He was also nominated by All India Chess Federation (AICF) for the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award.
      Very impressive, but the greatest chess player of all time? Most players think the all time greats are either Fischer, Kasparov, Morphy, Capablanca or Alekhine. Once in an interview Samuel Reshevsky commented that he didn't think Cap’s play fell of towards the end of his life, but that other players were playing at a much higher level than they did during Capa’s heyday so his results were not so good. Then there was Shirov writing about his meeting with Botvinnik and their discussion of the Botvinnik Variation. Shirov commented that the meeting was of no interest because the old man was stuck in the past insisting that certain moves were best when Shirov knew better.
     When Kramnik defeated Kasparov for the World Championship Bobby Fischer claimed in one of his radio rants that the games were fake…they were made up because nobody could play chess games that were that good. It would seem that advances in chess had passed old Bobby by, too.
      Anand is perhaps the greatest rapid chess players ever, but how does he compare to Kasparov? BTW…Kasparov is an arrogant, unpleasant twit while Anand seems to be a very pleasant guy, but when it comes to who’s the best, that doen't count.
      Each succeeding generation of players has built on the knowledge of their predecessors and as a result, they have advanced their understanding of chess to the point that surpassed that of the previous generation. So it is my opinion that Anand is greater than Fischer, Kasparov, Morphy, Capablanca or Alekhine. His games may not be as flashy as those guys, but as Reshevsky said of Capa, Anand’s competition is of a higher level than the greats of yesteryear.

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ChessOK Aquarium...again

I am still fiddling around with the IDeA function and have come to the conclusion this program stinks! It’s not intuitive or user friendly like Fritz PLUS I frequently get crashes and a couple of times have had to use Task Manager to shut the stupid program down when it seems to get hung up. The $35 (or whatever it was) I frittered away on the program also stings a little bit. Even though it’s not all that much money, I could have bought a new weed whacker instead.

EDIT: Here it is three weeks after the original post and I am still messing around trying to figure out how to use this stupid, stupid program.  It seems  even doing the simplest things  takes an extraordinary amount of effort.  The program is extremely cumbersome and unless I am really a dunce, difficult to master!  Spend your money on Fritz instead...everything is simple and easy to learn.

Vitruvius Follow Up

      As mentioned in a comment on the previous post, a test was conducted where the engine was given 25 test positions chosen from games in which a typical human positional sacrifice was played. The results can be viewed HERE. The ‘Human Version’ performed remarkably well.

      Its predecessor, DeepSaros3, can be downloaded HERE or HERE.  You can also download opening books. Version 3.0 is inspired by Wilhelm Steinitz and the evaluation functions have been modified to follow the rules dictated by Steinitz in the following publications:

- The Modern Chess Instructor (1889)

- Various numbers of "International Chess Magazine" (1886, 1901)

      So far I have not had a chance to try DeepSaros3 other than in a short 5 minute match against Houdini 1.5 (x64).  The results were surprising and indicate this engine is definitely worth further evaluation. DeepSaros 3 won all four games.
      Some comments made on the Open Chess Forum:

Everything I've seen posted would indicate that it's the weakest of the Ippolits, and buggy in MultiPV mode.

... I don't think that the utility of an engine stands or falls with its strength, once it's "strong enough" (and Vitruvius appears to be as strong or stronger than R4, at least in some testing). If Vitruvius manages to suggest lines which make sense to human players, analyzing or preparing for games with other humans, and which differ from the typical "computer moves" without being blunders, that would be a useful achievement, even if it loses against Houdini.

At some point I stopped using Vitruvious for analysis of correspondence games as it never suggested any idea that was better than what I could get with other engines and its crazy tries were always very easy to refute (contrast with Zappa Mexico II Dissident Aggressor which now and then still suggests plans that blow the socks of Rybka 4.1 or Critter 1.4.)

... I don't know if Vitruvius may be good or not for port-mortem analysis of human games, or OTB preparation (where needs compared to correspondence games analysis are entirely different) I advice people to remain skeptical.

Vitruvius Chess Engine

According to the author’s site: Vitruvius is a UCI engine with a penchant for human positional play and works with Fritz, Schredder, Aquariu, ChessBase, Chess Assistant, and free programs such as Arena, Scid, Jose and Winboard.  Vitruvius is based on the free Ippolit programs (RobboLito, Igorrit, IvanHoe) from which it inherits certain caracteristics and pecularties but Vitruvius has an original style of play with a highly speculative tendency. Thanks to its finely tuned positional vision, Vitruvius shows a readiness to sacrifice a pawn or two, the exchange and sometimes even a whole piece, for purely positional compensation.
        Price ranges from 25 Euros (32 & 64 bit) ($31) to 35 Euros (high-end version) ($44).  Opening books are sold separately for around $38...pricey!!
        The development team is Domenico Lattanzi, a computer scientist, cirst Category player and qualified juvenile chess instructor, Andrea Manzo, a computer scientist living and working in France. He is a master of the Italian Chess Correspondence Association (ASIGC) and has achieved his first norm of IM. Currently playing in the Final of the 15th World Cup of the ICCF and Roberto Munter, an industrial consultant.
       ATOMICC Computer Testing Blog has run several matches pairing Vitruvius against several well known engines:

1 Vitruvius 1.11C HEM x64 1CPU +53/=40/-7 73.0/100
2 Fritz 13 +7/=40/-53 27.0/100

1 Vitruvius 1.11C HEM x64 1CPU +25/=54/-21 52.0/100
2 Critter 1.4a 64-bit SSE4 1CPU +21/=54/-25 48.0/100

1 Houdini 2.0c Pro x64 1CPU +37/=44/-19 59.0/100
2 Vitruvius 1.11C HEM x64 1CPU +19/=44/-37 41.0/100

1 Rybka 4.1 SSE42 x64 1CPU +25/=59/-16 54.5/100
2 Vitruvius 1.11C HEM x64 1CPU +16/=59/-25 45.5/100

Rating List

All engines use 1 CPU.

        It would appear that this is a very good engine, but not quite up to the level of the very best.  On the other hand, if it does play ‘human-like’ as the authors claim it could be, for a lot of players, an engine worth investing in.

Simpson’s Divan

Simpson's in the Old Days

      Today Simpson's-in-the-Strand is one of London’s oldest restaurants, but to chess players it’s best known as haunt for early greats of the chess world.

       After a modest start as a smoking room and then a coffee house, Simpson's achieved a dual fame, for its traditional English food and as the most important venue in Britain for chess in the nineteenth century. Chess ceased to be a feature after Simpson's was bought by the Savoy Hotel group of companies at the end of the century, but it’s still around today and is famous for its traditional English food.
       As a coffee house it was a place where gentlemen smoked cigars with their coffee, browsed over the daily journals and newspapers, indulged in conversation about the politics of the day and…played chess.  Members paid one guinea a year but there was also a daily entrance fee for others: 2.5 pence  or 7.5 pence with coffee and a cigar.
       Chess matches were played against other coffee houses in the town with runners in top hats carrying the news of each move. The Grand Cigar Divan soon became recognized as the home of chess in England. It was one of the top London restaurants, becoming an established attraction with patrons including non-chess players like Charles Dickens, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli.
       Simpson introduced the practice of wheeling large pieces of meat on silver trolleys to each table and carving them in front of guests – a custom that still prevails today. 
       Shortly before his death in 1864, John Simpson sold the restaurant to Edmund Cathie, and in 1865 a prospectus was issued for "Simpson's (Ltd)" with capital of 100,000 pounds to purchase and extend the Divan Tavern.
       In 1898 Richard Carte, owner of the Savoy Hotel acquired Simpson's. Carte died in 1901, and his son, Rupert  took over the business and Simpsons was closed for redevelopment. All the old furniture and fittings were sold off and it was reopened in 1904 under the name Simpson's-in-the-Strand, Grand Divan Tavern.  It remains today.

Simpson's Today

      Simpson’s continues to be a favorite in London’s restaurant scene and is particularly renowned for its style of food which is described as ‘fine English food.’

My Favorite meal - breakfast!

       Today with its crystal chandeliers and French-polished paneled walls it’s nothing like it was in Staunton’s day though.  It still serves roasts carved from the trolley with daily specials, potted shrimp, lobster soup, and steak and kidney pudding.  They also serve game like roasted wood pigeon breast with green beans, new potatoes and bacon. Welsh rarebit, smoked Scottish salmon or roast rib of 28-day aged Scottish beef surrounded by roast potatoes, Savoy cabbage, Yorkshire pudding and horseradish are also on the menu.  They also serve breakfast.  They dress code is smart casual. 

       That’s today.  Yesteryear things were different.  On entering you found long rows of sofas, smelled tobacco and saw many chessboards and shelves full of books. An old waiter brought coffee, cigars and some newspapers, and asked if you would like a game of chess.
       On one occasion, when the Divan was being cleaned and redecorated, that the proprietor carried sunk into each marble table a chessboard and when the Divan was reopened, the players would not them!  use these stone squares. They said they had to have a board raised from the table.  Their reasoning was simple: the marble boards, being flush with the table, would allow a dishonest player to easily might easily slide a captured piece or pawn back again on to the board.  I guess chess players have always had to worry about cheating.
       In cold weather there was a large fire at each end of the room where patrons would congregate for a chat and a smoke.
       When Henry Buckle was around he would occasionally join in the talk; he was always very positive, and few cared to contradict him. His rapid talk was not like his play, for this was very deliberate. On one occasion, when playing against Charles Stanley, he took nearly an hour over a single move. When he did move, Stanley said, “Yes, I thought that the knight would be the right move!” “You only thought so; I know it,” retorted Buckle.
       Buckle would sometimes invite a player to visit him at his house for a game. He was fond of giving pawn and move, or pawn and two, to a strong player, and the game would usually last late into the night. Next day, Williams, who edited a chess column, would look out for Buckle’s antagonist, and get him to go over the game of the night before, which was then taken down. In this way some of Buckle’s games were preserved, which otherwise would have been lost.
       Other famous patrons were Bird, Blackburne, and Gunsberg. Then there was James Mason, who it was said was remarkably quiet while playing chess, all his energies being devoted to the game, and in this respect he differed from many other noted masters who it was said often assumed an air of carelessness and indifference.  Mason was also capable of giving sound views on the political questions of the day, in which he took a great deal of interest.
       Rev. G. A. MacDonnell often came where he was one of the most popular men at the Divan. Besides being an exceptionally fine player, be was gifted with a good sense of humor and had endless anecdotes to tell of the players of the previous generation…Boden, Buckle, Falkbeer, and Staunton.
       Another remarkable man who frequently appeared was James Mortimer.  Mortimer was a former secretary of the American Legation in St. Petersburg and Paris, a friend of Paul Morphy, the editor and proprietor of the Figaro, as well as several other journals, and the author of several plays.  He was an enthusiastic player who took part in every first-class tournament held in England for many years.
       Men distinguished in various professions were often visitors:  comedians and clergymen, journalists and doctors, elderly merchants and youthful clerks, pompous family lawyers.   
       Simpsons on the Strand was resurrected as a chess venue, perhaps for the last time, for the Short v. Kasparov match in 1993.

Petrosian - Bisguier

Modern Time Controls

      The US Championship has finished. In one amusing incident Kamsky defeated a washed up Seirawan in round 9. After 20 moves Kamsky had won a position and, thanks to the increment, more time on his clock than he started with! Kamsky had prepared the whole opening a year previously and Seirawan walked into the prepared analysis. Winner, GM Hikaru Nakamura beat GM Gata Kamsky for the first time ever in classical chess and finished first. The time controls were: 40/90 with 30 minutes for the rest of the game plus a 30 second per move increment from move one.

      In the tie between Zatonskih and Krush for the women’s championship the rules were: Two-game rapid match (G25+5) and if it ended in a tie after the two games, an Armageddon game was to be played. That’s 45 minutes plus a 5 second increment per move, draw odds for Black. Additionally, each player was to ‘bid’ an amount of time with which they were willing to play in order to have their choice of color.
      The match for this year’s world championship is only 12 games. The time control is 120 minutes, with 60 minutes added after move 40, 15 minutes added after move 60, and 30 additional seconds per move starting from move 61.
      In case of a tie at the end of 12 games, there will be a series of tie breaks. Colors will be drawn and four rapid games with a time control of 25 minutes plus 10 seconds per move.
      If the score is tied after the four rapid tie break games, colors will be drawn and two blitz games (5 minutes plus 10 seconds increment per move) will be played. If the score is tied after two blitz games, another two-game blitz match will be played, under the same terms. The process will repeat, if necessary, until five blitz matches have been played.
      If the score is tied after ten blitz games, a single sudden-death Armageddon game will determine the champion. The winner of a draw of lots gets to choose the color to play, with white given 5 minutes and Black 4 minutes. Beginning with move 61, a three-second increment will be added following each move. If the game is drawn then the player of the Black pieces is declared champion.
      I don’t know what to make of all this time control mumbo-jumbo. In the days of yesteryear the championship was a 24-game match with the champion keeping his title in case of a tie. The time control was 40/120 then 16 moves per hour (or whatever it was; I don’t remember exactly) and adjournment after 5 hours play.
      The argument goes that these days during adjournments the players can use engines to analyze their games. What’s the difference between having a gaggle of GM’s analyzing an adjourned position for the participant or having an engine do it? I guess another idea is that all of the moves are those of the participants and not others, man or machine. This may be a good idea, but somehow I miss the old days. The Botvinnik-Tahl and Fischer-Spassky matches had real drama.

Free Chess Database Program

ChessDB is a free chess database which can be used on Microsoft Windows, Linux, Apple Macs running OS X, FreeBSD, as well as most modern UNIX versions. The program has translations into English, Spanish, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian and Swedish.

          With ChessDB you can enter games with a mouse, pgn files, download from The Week in Chess, import from ICC and FICS and annotate them with text, symbols, colors and show variations.  You can also import different engines and create crosstables.  Engine matches are also possible. It has position set up and search functions, does rating graphs, player reports and classify games. It also has 3 and 4 piece tablebases.  A lot of program for free.  LINK

Halloween Gambit

I've never been a lover of gambits, sound or unsound, but the other day I was intrigued by an article I saw on the Halloween Gambit: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nxe5 Nxe5

In this gambit (also known as the Müller–Schulze Gambit or Leipzig Gambit) White sacrifices a knight for a single pawn. White's objective is to seize the center with pawns and drive back Black's knights.

The theoretician Oskar Cordel reported in 1888 that Leipzig club players used the opening to dangerous effect, but he did not believe it was sound. Their name for it, Gambit Müller und Schulze, the German equivalent of Smith and Jones. It was renamed the Halloween Gambit in the magazine Randspringer in 1993. The name is founded on the fact that players who are for the first time confronted with it they become shocked as if they were suddenly confronted with the horror of some scary Halloween mask.

Clearly the gambit is unsound, but I let Houdini 1.5a examine the position after 5.d4 for about a half hour and was kind of surprised at the results.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nxe5 Nxe5
NowWhite usually plays
5.d4
5.f4 does nothing for his development. Black can retreat the attacked knight to either g6 or c6. For example, 5...Nc6 6.e5 Ng8 7.d4 d5 which favors Black by 2P's according to Houdini.  Here is Houdini's analysis of the variations after about half an hour.
5...Ng6
5...Nc6 6.d5 Ne5 7.f4 Ng6 8.e5 Ng8 9.d6 cxd6 10.exd6 Qf6 11.Nb5 Nxf4 12.Nc7+ Kd8 13.Qf3 Bxd6 14.Nxa8 b6 15.c3 Qe6+ 16.Kd1 Ng6 with Black being given the advantage of only slightly over one pawn.
5...Bd6 only results in equality after 6.Nb5 Neg4 7.e5 Be7 8.exf6 Nxf6 9.Bf4 d6 10.Be2 0–0 11.Nc3 c6 12.0–0 Be6 13.Re1
6.e5 Ng8 7.Bc4 d5 8.Bxd5 N8e7 9.Be4 c5 10.d5 Nxe5 11.0–0 f5 12.Bd3 N7g6 13.Re1 Kf7 14.h3 Bd6 15.Nb5 Bb8 16.Bf1 a6 17.Nc3 Re8 with a nearly 2P advantage for Black.
Handing the opponent a two pawn advantage right out of the opening isn't something I'd be comfortable doing and GM Larry Kaufmann wrote in 2004 that the gambit is refuted by 4...Nxe5 5.d4 Nc6 6.d5 Bb4! 7.dxc6 Nxe4 8.Qd4 Qe7 which he attributes to the Polish IM Jan Pinski. Of course most of us aren't playing Hourdini or a GM and if the large number of short wins for White means anything, this gambit looks like something blitz players or club players might want to give a try...there's nothing to lose but the game.

For more analysis check out Chessville's coverage of it: PART 1 PART 2

Sam Loyd Puzzle

White to move and mate in three.  Not difficult with a board and pieces, but try doing it in your head and it’s a little more challenging.

A Morphy Miniature

Judge A.B. Meek

      Morphy’s opponent in this game was Alexander B. Meek (July 17, 1814 (Columbia, South Carolina) – November 30, 1865 (Columbus, Mississippi) a politician, lawyer, chess player, writer and poet who served as Alabama’s Attorney General in 1836.

       His ancestors on both sides were of Irish descent, and those on his father's side came from County Antrim, Ireland.  Meek graduated from the University of Alabama, A. B., 1833, and A. M., 1836, and received the honorary degree of A. M. from the University of Georgia, 1844.
       When the troubles with the Creek Indians occurred in 1836, he volunteered as ensign in the U. S. Army. During that same year, he was appointed attorney general of the state by Gov. Clement C. Clay to fill a vacancy, and held that position until the following winter.
       He was editor of the Flag of the Union, at Tuscaloosa, 1835-1839, and of the Southron, a literary magazine, 1839-1842. In 1842, Governor Benjamin Fitzpatrick appointed him judge of the probate court at Tuscaloosa, and he held that position until 1845. During the latter year he was appointed assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury by President James Polk, and became legal advisor of that department. After holding the office about two years, he retired with the commission of federal attorney for the southern district of the state, and was retained in that position until the close of Polk's term. He was associate editor of the Mobile Daily Register, 1851-1858; represented Mobile in the Alabama House of Representatives, 1853-1855, and as chairman of the committee on education, secured the establishment of a system of free public schools in the state.
       In 1854, he was appointed judge of the probate court of Mobile by Governor John A. Winston, and held that office until May, 1855; was elector on the James Buchanan ticket, 1856; and a representative in the state legislature and Speaker of the House, 1859-1861. He was a trustee of the University of Alabama, 1862-1864. He was author of The Red Eagle, 1855, Songs and Poetry of the South, 1856, Romantic Passages in Southwestern History, 1857; and an unfinished "History of Alabama"; and prepared a supplement to Aiken's Digest of Alabama, in 1842.
       Married: (1) in 1856, to Mrs. Emma Donaldson Slatter, of Mobile, the widow of Hope Hull Slatter; (2) in 1864, to Mrs. Eliza Jane Cannon, of Columbus, Miss., the widow of William R. Cannon, who was for a long time president of the Mississippi Senate. He had no children. Last residence: Columbus, Miss.
       In this game Meek plays a type of move frequently seen in games by amateur players who like to play sacrifices without regard to whether they are totally sound or not.  GM Ludek Pachman used this game in Modern Chess Strategy as an illustration of the dangers of trying to disturb the balance by means of a sudden attack when the opponent has not made any obvious errors.  He wrote that this wrong and so White’s sudden aggression was bound to achieve nothing. 
       This is not the view of modern players who will sometimes violate general principles if they feel they have some compensation.  This game also shows the necessity of relying on concrete calculation of variations rather than general principles.  As you will see, although Black does obtain a slight edge, Meek’s position was actually quite playable until his blunder at move 13.  We also see Morphy missing the best continuation on two different occasions and offering his opponent the chance to regain near equality. The game illustrates what often happens in annotated games…they are annotated by result when it is assumed the winner was in complete control and had it all figured out.  Of course these days all of us with an engine can be a critic, but that doesn’t take away from the enjoyment of the games.