An Instructive Game by Euwe

     Euwe needs no introduction, but his opponent in this game, Daniel Noteboom, is almost unknown except for an opening line that's named for him. Click HERE for the pronunciation of his name. Click HERE to hear the pronunciation of Euwe's name.
 

Noteboom

    Daniel Noteboom (26 February 1910 – 12 January 1932) was born in Noordwijk. He was a rising star in the early 1930s and gained notoriety with an impressive debut at the 1930 Chess Olympiad, scoring 11.5 – 3.5. 
     But after playing at Hastings 1931/32, he tragically died of pneumonia in London at the age of 21; a tragic end to what looked like a promising career. His trademark was aggressive play and he left his legacy with the wild and complex variation in the QGD, Semi-Slav: 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 c6 4 Nf3 dxc4 5 a4 Bb4 6 e3 b5 8 axb5 Bxc3 9 Bxc3 cxb5 10 b3 Bb7. 

     A match between Euwe and Noteboom was played in Amsterdam in 1931 and Euwe, near the height of his powers, won easily with a +3 -0 =3 score. 
     Take a look at the following position where Noteboom has just played 16...Nc5. In his book Strategy and Tactics in Chess, Euwe devotes a section to Directing the Attack on Fixed Pawns. He wrote, “We are concerned here with an action based upon the immobility of a hostile Pawn. This action does not necessarily lead to the capture of the Pawn in question, but may, for instance, result in an open file or other advantage.” 
     

    Looking at the above position, I would never in a million years have come up with the correct plan. Euwe attacks the c-Pawn! It's interesting though that all my engines (Crafty, Fritz 12, Houdini 2, Stockfish 6 and Komodo 8) instantly come up with the correct plan and assign white the advantage. 
     The interesting thing about the position is that after about 15 minutes Komodo 8 thinks white's advantage is only about half a Pawn, but Euwe comments that the advance of the b-Pawn leads to an immediate decision. 
     This brings up three questions. Is Komodo's evaluation too low and therefore incorrect? Did black go wrong earlier? And, finally, did black miss a major improvement later? 
     Because I am not in Euwe's league, I cannot answer exactly where black started to go wrong. But, it seems though that by the time the time the above position was reached that black had drifted into a lost position. Already after 11.Rad1 black was way behind in development while white had completed his and controls the d-file, so black apparently needs to look for an improvement even earlier.
 

Petrosian vs Spassky World Championship 1969

     Petrosian was the master of defense. He was a conservative, cautious, and defensive player who was strongly influenced by Nimzovich's idea of prophylaxis. He made more effort to prevent his opponent's offensive chances than he did to make use of his own, very rarely attacking unless he felt his position was completely secure. He usually won by solid, unimaginative play and waited until his aggressive opponent made a mistake. The result was a style that led to a lot of draws. Boring was a good description of his play. But it lead to him being extremely difficult to beat. In fact, he was undefeated at the 1952 and 1955 Interzonals, and in 1962 he did not lose a single tournament game. 
     As black, Petrosian played the Najdorf Sicilian and the French. As white, he often played the English. He had a penchant for moving the same piece multiple times in a few moves, confusing his opponents in the opening and threatening draws by threefold repetition in the endgame. Contrary to Nimzovich, he also had a preference for Knights instead of Bishops.
     Spassky, described his style as that of a hedgehog. Just when you think you had caught him, he put out his quills. 
     By the way, I always thought hedgehogs and porcupines were the same, but they are two distinct species. Both animals have prickly spines, but they are not closely related to each other and differ widely in a number of respects. 
     Hedgehogs are much smaller than porcupines, about half their size. Another main difference is where and how they live. Hedgehogs can be found across Europe, Asia and Africa. They are solitary animals, hibernate in winter. Porcupines reside in North and South America, as well as Africa, Europe and Asia and inhabit a larger variety of landscapes. 

Porcupine and hedgehog

     Both have spines, but they are very different. The hedgehog is covered by short, thick spines which are permanently attached to its skin. These spines usually lie flat and are harmless - so much so that it is possible to pet a hedgehog. When threatened, hedgehogs will roll into a tight ball so their spines protrude and their hands, feet and faces are tucked away.

A dog that encountered a porcupine

     Porcupines are more aggressive about using their quills for protection. Instead of spines, they are covered with long, hollow quills. The quills lie flat, but will raise into a protective position when threatened. If attacked, their quills, which have very sharp tips and are covered in barbs and will dislodge, sticking into their attacker. Thus, they are very painful and difficult to remove. After an encounter the porcupine simply grows new quills. Now you know. For you dog lovers, the dog shown here, a resident of Norman, Oklahoma, was admitted to an animal casualty unit where it was operated on to remove over 500 quills, treated with antibiotics and released.
     Spassky was considered an all-round player with a "universal style." He was also known as a fighter and he often had great ups and downs, so how he would fare going into this match was anyone's guess. 
     In 1969 Petrosian was defending his title in a rematch against Spassky. When Spassky played Petrosian in 1966 Spassky described the match as part of his learning process. He was thinking of Botvinnik when he had lost his championship to Smyslov and Tahl and had won the rematches. As a result of Spassky's dedication to defeating Petrosian the second time and becoming world champion his motivation seem reduced because in 1972 against Fischer, he did not seem to possess the same drive. Of course, Fischer's phenomenal talent also had something to do with it! 
     As for this match, the way it started out, it looked like Spassky was not up to the challenge. Petrosian won the first game, then followed two draws, but Spassky scored in games 4 and 5, games 6 and 7 were drawn and then Spassky won game 8 to establish what looked to be an almost insurmountable lead of two games. 
     Game 9 was drawn and then a small miracle happened: Petrosian won the next two games and, suddenly, after 11 games, the match was tied. Things settled down to what was a more routine thing for a match of this caliber when games 12 through 16 were drawn. 
     But then Spassky rallied again, winning game 17 which he described as the turning point in the match.  In a superior position, Petrosian offered a draw, but Spassky, though strongly tempted to accept, decided that he detected some insecurity on Petrosian's part and declined, believing it was necessary to create the maximum amount of difficulty for Petrosian. 
     Petrosian drew game 18, but only with some difficulty. Then Spassky won game 19 to regain his two point lead. There were only five games left, so it looked like Petrosian was done, but he scored in game 20 to pull within one point. 
     Spassky won game 21 to regain his two point lead and that left him needing only one point in the next three games while Petrosian had to do the impossible and score 2.5 out of 3. 
     Game 22 was drawn and now Spassky needed only a half point. Game 23 started on June 16th and adjourned to be resumed the next day which was Petrosian's 40th birthday. Spassky was up a pawn and had winning chances so Petrosian offered a draw and Spassky was the new World Champion at the age of 32. He had defeated the hardest player in the world to defeat in a seesaw battle that was closer and more exciting than expected by a score of 12.5-10.5. 
     Here is the very instructive game 19, only 24 moves, where Petrosian was badly outplayed.

 

Lichess

     Lichess is an ad-free, anonymous server that was created by Thibault Duplessis, a French programmer. The main features of the site are live and correspondence games at a variety of different time controls. For registered players, Lichess employs a rating system. Additionally the Stockfish chess engine is available for analysis of played games, and players can also play against the engine. Lichess also has a tactics training feature and supports several variants.

Ratings: One player claims their ratings seem a bit lower but then claimed it is the only place where he got a rating reasonably near his FIDE rating. 

Engine users? The site claims they believe it is important to fight all forms of cheating so the moderators and automated algorithms work to weed out bad players thus making Lichess the most secure site to play on! The claim is that they are always working on improving their cheat detection methods such as automated sandbagging detection and they are working on a “computer assistance detector.” 

     How successful is this? Who knows? However, if someone is caught cheating their profile will include a header saying, "This player uses chess computer assistance." Here's a funny thing: this flag will be visible in public to everybody except the cheater. Once caught, their rating is reset to 1500. 

     Of course, no site, no matter how vigorous their detection methods are, is going to detect cheaters one hundred percent of the time, nor will they be caught immediately. After finishing a rated game you can see a "view game statistics" link to see time statistics to help you think as to whether your opponent cheated. The idea is that engine users take about the same amount of time for every move. At least that's the theory. It seems to me that all you would have to do in order to defeat that cheat detection “method” is vary your time a lot. My observation is that people I have suspected of using engines always seem to be pretty well “booked up.” If I do a post postmortem and look over one of my games with an engine, it's amazing at how far they have book lines memorized even when I play something that turns out to be a minor sideline. 
     All-in-all though the site is a good one and I recommend giving it a try.

Trial for chess teacher rescheduled

     I originally posted on this story on April 29^th HERE. In that post I gave some links to sites and books on how to protect children from sexual predators. This is something definitely worth posting about again.

     I am hearing about this more and more and it's becoming a danger parents need to be on guard against; you have to keep an eye on your kid! A predator doesn’t look like the booger man! They are relatives, family friends, neighbors, older brothers or sisters (!), coaches, teachers and they are cunning and masters of deception. Molesters are typically NOT strangers. In fact, 90% of the time, they have a relationship with their victims and the family. 

    The trial of a former Columbus, Ohio chess teacher charged with gross sexual imposition has been rescheduled for October.

     Freddy Leon Wilson, 61, of Columbus, was scheduled to begin trial in Delaware County Common Pleas Judge Everett Krueger’s court Tuesday but his attorney, Diane Menashe, filed a motion June 17 to continue the trial to a later date. Krueger last week rescheduled the trial for Oct. 6 at 8:30 a.m. The two charges stem from statements made by a 4-year-old girl. READ full story.  

 

Original News Report

Sexual PredatorWarning Signs

Two Swedish Grandmasters

     Quick! Name a Swedish Grandmaster. If you said Gideon Stahlberg you probably named the best known. Stahlberg's highest Chessmetrics rating was 2762 on the March 1948 rating list which placed him number 3 on the list. If your more up-to-date, you may have thought of Ulf Andersson who Chessmetrics rated at 2743 on the October 1983 rating list which also placed him number 3 on the list. Andersson was a very solid positional player with a high percentage of his games against fellow GMs and was known for being a great endgame played, especially R and P, and is famous for winning seemingly unwinnable endgames, often in very long games. Boring, boring, boring.

     A lesser known Swedish GM was Pontus Carlsson who was born in Columbia but was one year old when his family died and he was adopted by a Swedish couple. His stepfather, Ingvar Carlsson, former chairman of the Swedish Chess Federation, taught him the game when he was four.

     Two lesser known and under appreciated Swedish players are Gösta Stoltz and Erik Lundin. Stoltz (May 9, 1904 – July 25, 1963) was rated 2700 on the January 1942 rating list at Chessmetrics, placeding him number 8 in the world and Lundin's highest Chessmetrics rating was 2661 on the October 1946 rating list making him the 20^th rated in the world at the time.

Stoltz

    Stoltz played a few matches with strong masters with decent results. In 1926, he lost to Botvinnik (+0 –1 =1) at a team match in Stockholm and in 930, he won against Isaac Kashdan (+3 –2 =1) in Stockholm.

    In 1930, he lost to Spielmann (+2–3=1), but in 1931, he won against Salo Flohr (+4 –3 =1) in Göteborg. The same year he lost to Flohr (+1 –4 =3) in Prague. Also, in 1931, he drew with Ståhlberg (+2 –2 =2). In 1934, he narrowly lost to Nimzovich (+1 –2 =3) in Stockholm.

    Stoltz played for Sweden in nine Chess Olympiads (1927–1937, 1952,1954) and in 3rd unofficial Chess Olympiad at Munich 1936.

At the beginning of his international career Stoltz' best results were:

1930, tied for 2nd-3rd with Bogoljubow, behind Kashdan, in Stockholm.

1932, won in Swinemünde.

1933, took 2nd, behind Nimzowitsch, in Copenhagen.

1934, took 3rd in Stockholm

1935, tied for 1st with Lindberg in Harnosand.

1936, tied for 2nd-3rd with Böök, behind Vladimirs Petrovs in Helsinki

1936, 3rd in Helsinki .

1937, tied for 3rd-4th in Stockholm

1938, 1st in Stockholm

     During World War II, Stoltz played in Sweden and Germany. In 1940, he tied for 4-5th in the Stockholm championship. In 1941, he won, ahead of Lundin and Alekhine, in the Munich 1941 chess tournament. In 1942, he took 6th in the Salzburg 1942 chess tournament and in September 1942, he tied for 9-10th in Munich. In 1943, he tied for 1st with Lundholm in Stockholm. In 1943/44, he took 4 th in Stockholm and finished 3rd, behind Stig Lundholm, and Paul Keres, in Lidköping.

    After the war, Stoltz played in a few international tournaments. His best results included 2nd behind O'Kelly in Beverwijk in 1946,. In he tied for 2nd-3rd in Prague (Miguel Najdorf won). In 1947, he tied for 1st with Eero Böök in Helsinki (zonal), and drew a play-off match (+1 –1 =6). In 1951 he tied for 3rd-4th in the zonal at Mariánské Lázně-Prague.

    Stoltz won the Swedish championships at Halmstad 1951, Hålland 1952, and Örebro 1953. He was awarded the International Master title in 1950, and the Grandmaster title in 1954.

Lundin

    Erik Lundin (Stockholm, 2 July 1904 – 5 December 1988) was awarded the IM title in 1950, and the Honorary GM title in 1983. Over the course of his career, he won games against such world class players as Bronstein, Euwe, Fine, Flohr, and Najdorf.

     Among his best results were winning Oslo, 1928 and tying for 2nd-3rd in Stockholm (Quadrangular, Richard Réti won). In 1929, he took 2nd in Göteborg (Nordic Chess Championship, Gideon Ståhlberg won), and took 3rd in Västerås.

     In 1931, Lundin tied for 1st-3rd with Salo Flohr and Gösta Stoltz in Göteborg. In 1932, he tied for 1st with Ståhlberg in Karlskrona. In 1933, he won a match against Rudolf Spielmann (+1 -0 =5) in Stockholm. In 1934, he won in Stockholm, and took 2nd in Copenhagen (Nordic-ch; Nimzovich won).

    In 1935, he took 2nd, with a score of 7.5/9, behind Alexander Alekhine's 8.5, in Örebro, after losing to Alekhine in the final round. In 1936, he took 4th in Margate (Flohr won), won in Ostend, and won in Helsinki (Nordic-ch). In 1937, he took 7th in Stockholm (Reuben Fine won), won in Copenhagen (Nordic-ch) and won a match for the Nordic Champion title against Erik Andersen 3.5-2.5.

    In 1938, he won in Kalmar, and tied for 2nd-3rd with Henrik Carlsson, behind Ståhlberg, in Örebro (Nordic-ch). In 1939, he took 4th in Alingsås (SWE-ch; Ståhlberg won), and tied for 1st with Ståhlberg in Oslo (Nordic-ch).[3]

    During World War II, Lundin won at Göteborg 1941 (Swedish Chess Championship) and tied for 2nd-3rd with Alekhine, behind Stoltz, at Munich 1941. In 1942, he tied for 3rd-4th with Stoltz in Stockholm and finished first in Östersund (SWE-ch). In 1943, he tied for 2nd-3rd in Malmö (SWE-ch). In 1945, he finished first in Visby and in 1946, first in Motala (SWE-ch).

    In 1951 he finished 2nd, behind Czerniak in Vienna and in 1952, he won in Zürich ahead of Euwe. In 1960, he won in Kiruna (SWE-ch). In 1961, he won in Avesta (SWE-ch). In 1964, he won in Göteborg (SWE-ch).

    Lundin played for Sweden in nine official Chess Olympiads and once in 3rd unofficial Chess Olympiad at Munich 1936. He won four medals; team silver (Warsaw 1935) and bronze (Folkestone 1933), individual gold (Folkestone 1933) and bronze (Buenos Aires 1939).
 

Maniac I, an Early Chess Playing Computer

Los Alamos scientists Paul Stein and Nick Metropolis with Maniac I

     In the January 1957 issue of Chess Review Magazine there was an article titled “Experiments in Chess On Electronic Computing Machines.” It was written by mathematician and mathematical physicist Stan Ulam and his colleague P. Stein of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Ulam had done work with atomic energy and 'computing machines.' He normally worked at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory but at the time was serving as a visiting professor at MIT. 
     The experiment they ran was the first time that a computer played an entire game based on instructions of a strictly general nature. Previous attempts had never concerned themselves with more than either short mating combinations where the computer would find the solution by running through a series of legal moves or elementary ending where simple instructions would enable the machine to avoid blunders or where routine ways of forcing mate were included in the instructions move by move. The method was similar to the way a human would consult a book like Fine's Basic Chess Endings. 
     Previously Norbert Weiner had written a book, Cybernetics, where he speculated that it might be possible to construct a computer that 'might be as good a player as the majority of mankind.' and Claude Shannon had actually constructed a simple home-made computer that was able to play a few simple positions. Shannon's computer used a starting position with a reduced number of pieces so as to avoid over-taxing the computer's memory. 
     When Prof. Ulam had discussed the possibility of making a chess-playing machine many of his colleagues flatly refused to believe that it was possible to construct a machine that played on its own. Ulam described how many of them 'violently rejected the whole idea of a machine being able to do something akin to thinking.' Ulam admitted that because men's thinking process was not fully understood, it would be impossible to design a machine that thinks the way humans do, but he believed that if it was given a set of instructions, it could arrive at results that a human could by 'thinking.' 
     In the article Edward Lasker, also a strong checker player, described how he had recently played a game of checkers against one of the most advanced 'electronic computers' designed by IBM. The designer, Dr. Arthur Samuel, had programmed the computer to calculate three moves ahead and it had defeated Lasker with some rather brilliant play, so Lasker thought it might be possible to design a computer to play a decent game of chess. 
     A group of scientists, including chess players, at Los Alamos decided to construct a code based on only two factors, material and mobility. Shannon had described such a possibility earlier and Alan Turing had previously written a code that allowed his machine to see one move ahead, but it did not play very good chess and was easily beaten. 
     In order to test their ideas, Ulam and Stein used a 6x6 board and the machine was designed to look two moves ahead for each side (known today as 4 plies) so that it could play a game in a reasonable amount of time, about 10 minutes per move. The computer they used, Maniac I, was an older, slower computer in their laboratory and the estimated that it could perform about 10,000 elementary operations per second. 
     Here is a game played by their machine and analyzed using Houdini 1.5. I set the position up on Fritz using the 'Position Setup' feature in order to restrict it to the 6x6 board. Analysis proved to be kind of tricky because a) the position got complicated and b) the engine was unaware that because of the restricted size of the board, a lot of better moves were not possible!
 

An Amazing Ending by Eljanov

This game was played at last year's Qatar Open, won by Yu Yangyi with 7.5 out of 9 ahead of Vladimir Kramnik and Anish Giri, both with 7. The ending after white's 51st move is worth studying because it looks like white has good drawing chances, but the 2700-plus GM demonstrates the win. 

A Lesson on Square Control From Bisguier

     GM Arthur Bisguier (born October 8, 1929), besides being a popular GM, is a chess promoter and writer who has won two U.S. Junior Championships (1948, 1949), three U.S. Open titles (1950, 1956, 1959), and the 1954 US Championship title. He played for the United States in five chess Olympiad and in two Interzonal tournaments (1955, 1962). In 2005,the United States Chess Federation proclaimed him "Dean of American Chess". 
    

Few people realize just how good Bisguier actually was in his heyday. He collected the scalps of just about all the leading players of his day. Larry Evans called him a player with more natural talent than Fischer!
     So, why weren't his tournament results better? Probably Al Horowitz pinpointed the reason when he wrote of Bisguier that he “is a sparkling stylist. His forte is tactics, and he is a foe of stodgy chess. Often he will get an attack going after the first few moves in an opening. His op­ponent, stunned by the impact of an early blow, is demoral­ized and must scurry for a semblance of defense. The as­sault, meanwhile, mounts fu­riously, and it is all over be­fore the bewildered victim can say check.” 
     Another reason was that Bisguier always preferred opening variations that were somewhat off the beaten track, hoping to always take his opponents out of their preparation.
     Yet another reason was probably his reputation as a party animal. I remember that before the start of the 1975 US Championship in Oberlin, Ohio several of us were standing around talking to Bisguier and William Lombardy when Bisguier suddenly asked a couple of guys where the nearest liquor store was. They explained to him that because of Oberlin College, the venue, it was a “dry” town, meaning the sale of alcohol was prohibited and the nearest liquor store was several miles away in a neighboring town. Bisguier promptly pulled out his wallet and handed them a twenty dollar bill and instructed them to go and buy him a fifth of Jack Daniels. 

Bisguier on Aging: 
A current USCF Expert and former 2397 rated player named Lonnie Kwartler was honored in the latest issue of Chess Life. What's interesting is that he grew up 14 years later on the same street in The Bronx as Bisguier. It's interesting that Bisguier's cousin and later Kwartler's cousin owned the same butcher shop. Kwartler played on the same team as Bisguier in some amateur team championships and says Bisguier gave him some advice on aging and chess: You no longer go to a tournament to win it, but just to do something nice. 
     Kwartler added that it's still chess and whatever there was about it that first appealed to us is still there. 
     Bisguier's opponent in this game was IM Kamran Shirazi (born 21 November 1952).  Born in Tehran, he has represented Iran, the United States, and France. He moved to the United States in the late 1970s and quickly became one of the most active players in the country, winning many tournaments, including the Southern California Open (five times), the World Open (tied for first in 1983), the National Open (tied for first in 1985), and the Memorial Day Classic (tied for first in 1986). 

     He was known for playing strange and unorthodox openings. Shirazi's rating rose rapidly and he became one of the highest rated players in the US. However, when invited to play in the 1984 U.S. Chess Championship, Shirazi managed only one draw from 17 games, finishing last. In that championship, Shirazi also achieved the dubious distinction of losing the shortest decisive game in the history of the U.S. Championship: his game as White against John Peters, which went 1.e4 c5 2.b4 cxb4 3.a3 d5 4.exd5 Qxd5 5.axb4?? Qe5+ 0-1.
     He subsequently made an appearance in the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. He is introduced as "Grandmaster Shirazi" but he is actually an IM, currently rated 2399. He has lived in France for several years and changed his FIDE federation from the US to France in 2006. 
     In this game Bisguier played the Grand Prix Attack and somehow Shirazi seemed to never have had a chance as Bisuier first grabbed space and shut out Shirazi's KB then went to work on the Q-side making c5 a focal point that remained dominant for the rest of the game. That's how GM's do it...they make chess look simple.