Fritz’ Monte Carlo Method

      There are several analysis functions with Fritz 12 and the one that intrigued me was the “Monte Carlo” feature. It does not work with my setup and I get a message that my engines to not support this feature. Out of curiosity, I looked it up to see what I was missing.

      In the financial world you often can’t make precise judgments of situations so the Monte Carlo method is used to get a ‘feel’ for different circumstances. In fact it can be used for any complex situation where precise analysis is impossible. Apparently this is what this feature attempts to do.
      The Monte Carlo feature allows you to create position statistics. It doesn’t work for me because you need one of the Rybka engines. There are a couple on the old computer but before I locate them and transfer them to the laptop, I wanted to find out exactly what I’ve been missing, is it worth the trouble and do I need it.
      As I understand it, with this function the engine plays a whole lot of blitz games against itself from a given position until you tell it to quit and then it comes up with a statistical evaluation of the position. Apparently what the results tell you are which moves are likely to give the best odds.
      The Monte Carlo system does not work well in calculating exact variations (like tactics) and is most useful in examining positions where positional judgment in the key factor. One person gave as an example: Suppose you are trying to decide whether to trade or push a P. If there is no tactical result in the next several moves, the engine will have trouble deciding whether to trade or push. With the Monte Carlo system it may be that pushing leads to a position where little progress is possible. On the other hand, it may show trading will allow one side to gain an advantage. You can’t play an entire game using this system. Instead, you have to know when it’s a good position in which to activate the feature.
      I can see where this feature would be valuable to a GM doing research or to a world class CC player who is spending days, or even weeks, on analyzing a move, but for me it’s more information than I need…or want.   A Simple Explanation of the Monte Carlo Method in Physics

Engine Shootout

I set up this position from the post on the Budapest Gambit and ran a shootout with Houdini playing Black. Believing Black to have the inferior position, I wanted the strongest engine to play the inferior side. The whole thing was unscientific and does not prove anything beyond a doubt but the results of different engines against Houdini were:


Fritz 12.........2.5 – 0.5
Firebird........ 1.0 – 0.0
RobboLito.....1.0 – 1.0 (2 draws)
Stockfish......0.5 – 1.5

The results leave me thinking I was correct in believing White would have won. Clearly Stockfish and RobboLito are the weakest as neither on was able to force the win.

Budapest Gambit Revisited

      The Budapest Gambit (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5) was first played in 1896 but became popular in 1918 after Dr. Milan Vidmar won a game employing it. It enjoyed a rise in popularity in the early 1920s, but nowadays it’s rarely seen in professional circles because it has a lower performance level for Black than many other openings. Still, GM Robert Byrne once opined that it is a respectable defense that is worth considering, GM Arthur Bisguier has been known to play it throughout his career and GM Boris Avrukh called it “almost respectable.”

      When I posted on it about 6 months ago I wrote that in looking over my games with it I didn’t find a single one worth posting so came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth playing. I wrote that in connection with OTB and CC games I’ve played against reasonably strong opponents.
      I’ve been playing it a lot in online blitz and have had good results, but none of my opponents have been rated very high. I did take another look at a game against a local master I played in one of my last OTB tournaments and it’s too bad we didn’t get to play out the ending because my opponent exceeded the time limit right when it was looking to be a very difficult one.
      In the game White took a positional approach and I managed to maintain equality throughout the game until I made the mistake in thinking my a and b Pawns would be more than his N could handle. White missed an opportunity to win one of the P’s and we reached the following position:

      In this position White lost on time and I’m really not sure what the result should be. A general rule where a N vs. 2P’s is: A N can normally hold 2 connected passed P’s provided it is reasonably near them and they have not reached the 6th rank. ‘Reasonably’ is rather vague, but it is difficult to give an exact rule because of the peculiarity of the N’s move.

      Another rule is: If the K is supporting the P’s while the other K is far off, the N’s task is impossible and one of the P’s will queen. If the defending K is in front of the P’s with proper support from the N, then the N can easily be sacrificed for them.

For more information on the Budapest check out the following links:

e-book - The Fabulous Budapest Gambit

Chesscafe Article by Gary Lane

Opening Master

Budapest Gambit Blogspot

Win with the Grob Attack

      The Grob Attack, also known as the Spike, is characterized by 1 g2-g4. This opening was pioneered by the Swiss International Master, Henry Grob (1904-1974), who analyzed it extensively. It was also extensively analyzed by the infamous US “master” Claude F. Bloodgood III.
      The Grob Attack is tactical and dangerous. That is, dangerous for both players! I have successfully used it in CC play against players as high as 1900. Against players rated above that it’s just too risky to play but it is an especially good try in blitz. White intends to pressure the long diagonal of light squares while also threatening to launch a Kingside pawn storm.
      I made a pdf booklet on the Grob from the database of Bloodgood’s games and added a short bio which can be downloaded HERE.  I’d advise that before purchasing a more serious work on the opening such as The Killer Grob, you take a look at the pdf booklet.

Bloodgood wrote in the introduction to his book: "Grob's Attack is a basic gambit unlike anything else in modern chess theory. Every basic concept of development and piece placement must be discarded once 1. g4 has been played, and this applies to the player with Black even more than to the player with White. Accepting the gambit pawn in the Grob is accepting immediate problems, but it has been my experience that players facing this for the first time are most likely to do just that."

On rare occasions well-known players like Keres, Basman, and Skembris have used 1.g4!? to good effect. The Grob is a great opening to play for its surprise effect and because of its tactical nature, the tactically better player will often catch unsuspecting opponents.

I'd suggest that if you want to have some fun in blitz games you might want to try the Grob Attack. Here's a quick look at some possibilities:
1. g4 d5

2. Bg2 Bxg4
3. c4
This position occurs very frequently. Black has four main lines of play from this point, each with its own peculiar problems. 3...dxc4? is obviously no answer, so Black not only can't take the second pawn, but must defend his d-pawn even though it cannot be held. The first three lines considered are attempts to hold the center by defending the black d-pawn: 3... c6; 3... Nf6!?; 3... e6. The fourth line, 3... e5!? is an attempt to avoid the problems of defending the d-pawn, but it has not fared well in practice.

1.g4 d5
2.Bg2 c6
This solid defensive line is an attempt by Black to move the game into positional situations rather than meet the tactical possibilities resulting from 2...Bxg4!? White has several playable alternatives: "Double Gambit" 3. c4; "Short Spike' 3. h3; and the "Spike" 3. g5.  I've had good luck with 3.c4 followed by playing Qb3.

The Open Defense
1.g4 d5
2.Bg2 e5
This basic line of play is both sharp and double edged. Black must be prepared for a tactical battle, but one which is by no means one-sided. White can play: 3.e4!? or 3.c4

Other lines after 1... d5
1.g4 d5
2.Bg2 e6
This passive defense is tempting, and the aggressive player may well wish to attempt to break it open quickly, but it is not weak by any means and should be treated with respect.  Black has a number of other playable alternatives which for the most part have not been examined in any detail.

1.g4 d5
2.Bg2 b5
This is the line with the most possibilities. Other moves are also playable. 2...Nc6 3.c4!, 2...c5 3.g5, 2...Nd7 3.d3
3.e4 dxe4 4.Bxe4 c6 5.h3 Nf6 6.Bg2 Be6

1... e5
1.g4 e5 2.Bg2
Several lines not recommended for White here include: 2.c4? h5!, 2.e4? d5! and 2.d4!?

1.g4 e5 2.d3
This move offers White a bit more initiative. The variations after 2.d3 are: 2... h6; 2... h5; 2... Nc6; 2... Be7; 2... Bc5; 2... d6;

1... Various
For all practical purposes, 1... d5 or 1... e5 are the only moves which present White with any immediate problems. This does not mean that White need not be concerned with other possible answers, for virtually any move can develop into a serious test.

The Road to Grandmaster

      Road to Grandmaster is a blog detailing the efforts of Will Taylor, a 21-year old British student, to become a chess Grandmaster. He is currently a ‘Class A’ player, with an ECF grade of 152 which equates to a FIDE rating of roughly 1900. £200 has been bet with William Hill at 25:1 on him achieving this goal, which would result in a £5000 payout if he is successful.
      The blog was only started in September of last year, so let’s hope Mr. Taylor has better luck than Tom Rose did! He has some instructive analysis of his games that are worth taking a look.

Alekhine - Chase Variation

This is just a test to see which way I prefer to post games using Chess Flash: Horizontal or Vertical layout.  Any preference, readers?

Boden's Mate Again

I've posted about Boden's Mate here before. I got a chance to play it again in an online blitz game in the following position.  Yes, White is down a ton of material; he was one of those players who, well, Dr. Eliot Hearst once wrote a column for Chess Life and did an article on a 'chess dictionary' where he gave the following definition:  Resignation - a way of ending a game unknown to weak players. See if you can spot the mate...you have 2 seconds.

Don't Try This at Home

This 5-minute game game on chessdotcom features a defense (by me!) that's so bad it doesn't have a name.  I'm referring to the B sac on move 3 which looks like some of the sacs I've been hit with by lower rated players in blitz games.  They should never work, but I can see why such unsound sacs are popular because often it requires good defensive skill, something White was lacking in this game, to refute them. White was one of those guys who, when they are losing, disconnect.  I don't mind sitting there for two minutes watching their clock run down though. I take the win then block them just to make sure I never have to play them again. So far on chessdotcom I've blocked about a dozen or so players.  One because of his foul language. Anyway, I won't even think of playing this trash again.

Capa’s Intuition vs. Houdini and Fritz

      The following legally played engine-assisted game was played on LechenicherSchachServer; I was using the Houdini 1.5 32 engine. I can’t be sure what engine my opponent was using, but it is clear that Fritz 12 does not do nearly as well evaluating this game as Houdini did.

      What makes the game interesting is that it illustrates several points I have recently posted about concerning opening preparation in correspondence chess, trusting GM evaluations over engines, the difference in engine evaluations and not letting an engine run long enough, to name a few.
      My opponent played the K-Gambit and I declined it on principle. When it became clear we were following the game between an unknown named Pulvermacher and Capablanca played in New York in 1907, I could not figure out why my opponent was following that game because it was a quick win for Capablanca.
      It became clear when the engines found an improvement for White at move 9 and my opponent was banking on the improvement to give him the advantage. Some preliminary analysis conducted with Houdini had already alerted me to that point so I was not surprised.
      Pulvermacher played 9.Bxg4 which was a losing blunder. Fritz and Houdini both recommended the much better 9.Nxg4. Houdini evaluated the position at a one P advantage for White. So how did White end up losing the game? As I pointed out in the post “Correspondence Play and Analyzing with an Engine,” engines may give a deceptive positional evaluation. I had to ask, “Did Capa misevaluate the position or was his positional judgment that Black stood better after 8…O-O no matter what White replied correct?” The answer was not immediately apparent but I followed my own advice and trusted Capa’s judgment. Subsequent analysis proved that he was indeed correct and that, as pointed out in the previous post, you cannot rely on an engine’s positional judgment especially when it has a material advantage. In this case Black’s advantage was not evident for several more moves.
      It also shows the disadvantage of selecting an engine recommended move after only allowing it a minute or so to analyze. You must allow it to think much longer and then play out the variations to make sure there is not something beyond its horizon or possibly a better move that’s lost in the trimming process. Failure to do so will result in what happened in this game; White got false evaluations.
      White erred by playing Fritz’ choice, after one minute of analysis, of 12.Bxb5.which supposedly left him an advantage of 1-1/3 P’s. On the other hand Houdini evaluated it at only 0.6 P.
      We see that by move 17, that without making any “mistakes,” the position was rated equal by Houdini but Fritz initially thought White had an advantage of about 0.8 P. However, after a minute or two Fritz dropped the evaluation to about 1/3 P.
      By the time we get to move 18 Fritz’ evaluations were totally whacked out while Houdini had a pretty good grasp of the real situation.
      As I said, I have no way of knowing which engine White was using, but it is clear that Houdini’s evaluations are closer to the mark than those of Fritz 12. I also noticed Fritz’ evaluations tended to jump about a lot during its analysis process whereas Houdini’s evaluations remained “steadier.”
      In any case this game makes a good case for doing opening research, allowing engines plenty of time and not just accepting their recommendation of what the best move is after only a few second’s thought, the necessity of actually playing through the engine’s recommended variation for a few moves and finally, trusting a GM’s positional judgment as to who stands better.
      The game also shows why, no matter what one thinks of engine-assisted chess, there’s more to winning than just buying (or downloading free) software and letting the engine select your move. Titled CC players are also proven correct when they say you need to check things out with more than one engine and anybody who plays only engine moves in as ICCF titled event will lose.

Information Overload - Food for Thought

The March 7, 2011 issue of Newsweek magazine had a rather lengthy article entitled “I Can’t Think” that discussed the difficulty we have in making decisions these days owing to the tremendous amount of information we are constantly being bombarded with from television, newspapers, the Internet, e-mails, tweets, etc.

      One thing researches discovered is that more information can lead to objectively poorer choices. They discovered that, among other things, we are conditioned to give greater weight in decision making to what is latest, not what is more important or interesting. The article says, “We are fooled by immediacy and quantity and think it’s quality.”
      “Creative decisions are more likely to bubble up from a brain that applies unconscious thought to a problem rather than going at it in a full frontal assault. So while we are likely to think creative thoughts in the shower, it is much harder if we’re under a virtual deluge of data.”
      I’ve noticed that when working on correspondence games, I’ve often come up with an idea for a move at odd times when I wasn’t even thinking about chess. If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I’ve written considerably about GM’s and pattern recognition. GM’s, because of their great storehouse of patterns, usually don’t have to comb the position for a long time to come up with a good move. A few good candidate moves instantly pop into their head. They spend all their time checking and rechecking these moves for flaws and nuances, but the general idea was probably there from almost the beginning.
      Average players, as I have noted, often spend their time looking at many more moves and going far too many moves deep in their calculations. This results in an information overload where many long variations are whirling around in their heads. The result is often confusion and a poor choice.
     I noticed this phenomenon years ago. Often in the first 3 or 4 moves I looked at was a move a GM at least considered. Maybe they didn’t play it but they looked at it. That was when I came to the conclusion I was looking at too many moves and trying to calculate too far ahead. When I started looking at only the first 3-4 moves that popped into my head and avoided going more than 3-4 moves deep and then trying to make an evaluation of who stands better my rating went up from the mid-1600’s to over 2000. I guess it was because after 3 or 4 moves I could visualize the position good enough to know if it was worse, better or about the same as it had been a few moves previously. The truth is, I couldn’t to that after 6, 7 or 8 moves…probably was not even visualizing the position correctly so any judgment would have been inaccurate.  That lead to even worse choices when deciding on a move.
      The article went on to say, “One of the greatest surprises in decision science is the discovery that some of our best decisions are made through unconscious processes.” I think this has already been discovered with GM’s. On scientist noted, “…it is so much easier to look for more and more information than to sit back and think about how it fits together.” Maybe that explains why sometimes you see GM’s sitting at the board staring at the ceiling or the wall. Maybe they are letting their subconscious work on the problem?

Vera Menchik

Vera Menchik (16 February 1906–27 June 1944) was a female British player who became famous for becoming the first women’s world champion and successfully competing in men’s tournaments in which she defeated many leading players of the day.

      The daughter of a Czech father and British mother, she was born in Moscow but after WW1 and the Russian Revolution, her family moved to England in 1921.
      At the time of the Russian Revolution the Menchik family lived in a six room flat in Moscow , but a notice was served on Vera's father that he must share his rooms or give up most of them. People came up from below bringing their goats and fowls with them. Vera and Olga were not permitted to visit the basement of their flats where many people lived in great poverty.
      Worse was to come for the Menchik family. Vera's father was the owner of a mill, but this was seized in the unrest and the family was driven out of their home. Mrs Illingworth, grandmother of Vera, fled from Moscow and walked a long way to receive help from the Consul. She left the country and came to Hastings to live. Meanwhile the rest of the Menchik family were made to sweep snow and this adversely affected the health of Vera's mother. In the autumn of 1921, when Vera was 15 years of age, her family left the country and came to Hastings, where they lived with Mrs Illingworth.
      Her father taught her chess when she was nine and, in the year of her arrival in England at the age of fifteen, she won the British girls' championship. The following year, she became a pupil of Geza Maroczy. After WW1 the Hungarian GM, Maroczy, had moved to Hastings and became her coach. Geza Maroczy had suffered privation during WW1 and, on coming to Hastings , had been allowed to stay at the Albany Hotel for free for a period of time.
      The FIDE established the first world championship for women in 1927 which Menchik won with +10 -0 =1. She won every women's world championship held thereafter: 1930, 1931, 1933, 1935, 1937, 1939. In 83 games she lost only one and drew four. She was killed in a bombing raid in 1944, at the age of 38.
      In 1929, she was invited to the Carlsbad International Tournament which included Capablanca, Tartakover, Nimzowitsch and Euwe. She did not have a good result in the tournament, finishing tied for last place with several players. Among her best results were a second place finish with Rubinstein at Ramsgate, a half point behind Capablanca and ahead of Maroczy, and George Koltanowski. She finished second in London in 1932, third in Maribor 1934 and third in Yarmouth in 1935.
      Starting in 1929, she participated in a number of Hastings tournaments and when in 1929, she entered a tournament at Carlsbad, the Austrian master Albert Becker ridiculed her entry by proposing that any player that Menchik defeated play should be granted membership into the Vera Menchik Club. Of course, Becker became the first member. Other member included: Eero Book, Colle, Golombek, Sultan Kahn, Miesis, Milner-Barry, Opocensky, Reshevsky, Saemisch, Steiner, Sir George Thomas, William Winter, Yayes, and…Alekhine!
      In 1934 she finished third at Maribor ahaed of Spielmann and Dr. Vidmar. In 1942 she defeated Jacques Miese in a match +4 -1 =5.
      In 1937, at the age of 31, she married Rufus Stevenson (1878–1943), twenty-eight years her senio. Stevenson was subscriptions editor of the British Chess magazine.
      Early in 1943 Vera's husband died and she was joined by her mother and sister. On 26th June 1944 the house was destroyed by a German bomb and all three perished. Vera was 38 years old, Olga 36 (also a well-known player) and their mother 59. Menchik’s death caused outrage all over the country and one British newspaper columnist wrote: “In the annals of chess history this black blot will remain for ever marked against the German nation, and must fill chess players of the future with repulsion and disgust.”      There home was located at 47 Gauden Road in South London. Today the addrtess is an apartment complex.


      Menchik’s play was characterized by sound positional judgment and she was not known for tactical attacking play, but was particularly good in converting small advantages into wins. During her games she remained immovable in her chair. She soon became very popular, not just because she was a woman in what was essentially a man's game, but on account of her shy and kind nature. She had other hobbies, especially tennis and modeling in clay.

      In December 1923 she competed in her first Hastings Congress and obtained a draw against Edith Price, the current British ladies' champion. In 1925 she played two matches against Edith Price winning both of them and was clearly the strongest female player in the country. Still, she could not enter the national championship because she was not a British citizen.
      1927 an international ladies' tournament was held in London in the summer which Vera won with a score of 10.5 out of 11.. Subsequently the International Chess Federation decided to give the tournament the status of the women's world championship. She was easily the strongest women player in the world and from 1928 onwards she began to be invited to some strong tournaments where all her opponents were men.
      In August 1928 she had given a talk on the French Defence at the Hastings CC and began to take an interest in teaching chess, writing articles and giving simultaneous displays. She even gave bridge lessons.
      He had previously been married to Agnes (nee Lawson), who had been one of the strongest lady players in the country. Sadly she had died following a terrible accident at an airport. For an earlier Blog post on this Mrs. Stephenson, see HERE.

          

Correspondence Play and Analyzing with Engines

Computers can be a useful tool in opening research and checking out opponents.

      If you are going to play CC these days you will probably use an engine. Not necessarily to select your moves because on most sites their use is illegal. However you may be keeping track of your games using a chess program or researching openings.

      When it comes to openings, Stan Vaughn, a well-known correspondence player, advises that you should never take the evaluations given in books for granted. I can attest to this because over the years, before anybody ever heard of computers, I lost more than one game by blindly following the “book.” Vaughn advises that you should go to the end of the variation, set up a position and let the engine check it out. Personally, I would check out the whole line not just the final position. There may be a bad move that occurs earlier.
      Also be aware that engines may give a deceptive positional evaluation. For example, assuming the game does not take a tactical turn, as you approach the ending, that Q-side P-majority the engine did not give a lot of importance to may be the deciding factor. I have also reached positions where I “knew” a sacrifice would give me a winning advantage but when analyzed with an engine, it was skeptical and, as I’ve said previously, sometimes engines don’t evaluate positions with unbalanced material very well. Play over GM games with an engine and you’ll find that at times their opinion disagrees with the engine. Unless it’s a tactical situation, trust the GM.
      Remember, game databases are museums because they only tell you what was popular in the past and so you have to keep up on the latest theory.
      It is also advisable to look up your opponent’s games on whatever server you are playing on. It may give you a good idea of what openings he likes to play. You may also want to play through some of his games to see if you can spot any strengths or weaknesses.
      If he likes to play the King’s Gambit and you prefer to avoid it, then you may want to meet his 1.e4 with something other than 1…e5. If he’s a lower rated player you may notice he makes a lot of tactical mistakes, or as I have found in a lot of online blitz games, some players have a penchant for sacrifices on f7 (or f2), sound or not. In such cases you can often bait them into situations where you can be reasonably sure they won’t play well. Or, maybe you see your opponent plays endings poorly. If that’s the case, why not avoid tactical lines and play for the ending? Maybe he plays the same openings in every game. You may want to research them and search out the latest improvements. Maybe he won’t be aware of them.

Another question is how to use an engine for effective analysis of a position.

      Using engines to analyze sharp variations has made a big impact on openings these days. Every GM and other strong players use them to one degree or another. Given enough time, really strong players will see the same tactical shots the computer sees but good analysis requires looking at a lot of variations and sub-variations, so this is where an engine will save an enormous amount of time. The final result will be analysis that’s largely free of serious tactical errors. That’s something that cannot be said for much old pre-computer analysis where writers often made their analysis quickly or carelessly.
      The truth is, reliance on engine evaluations decreases as one’s tactical ability increases. Thus GM’s and world class CC players won’t get much benefit from knowing Fritz or Rybka’s evaluation of the position is 0.95; they form their own evaluation.
      It is no use having the engine do the analysis if you don’t understand it. Unless you are running a powerful computer and letting the engine run for a couple of days, when allowing it to evaluate a position, the deeper the evaluation goes, the less likely it is to be totally accurate. Good analysis must be first, broad. Once you have looked at a lot of plausible moves, then it’s time to go deeper into the ones that look most promising. This way you will also notice themes and motifs that recur in one form or another in the different variations. Try to avoid playing the next move and the next and the next until you are far too deep into the variation.
      Very often engines will offer as best moves of a sort that only a computer would select and not moves that a human would play. That’s because humans play moves based on principles humans understand rather than algorithms.
      Another temptation is to trust an engine’s evaluation completely but those evaluations are often worthless. The scoring function of the engine should be regarded as mostly an approximation based on the material balance, nothing more. Chess engines lack imagination. They will see tactics that can be calculated to the end within their horizon, but they will miss ideas that cannot be calculated within their horizon. Long-range positional sacrifices are beyond their ability to calculate.
      This is the realm where CC GM’s excel and it is the reason they routinely defeat players who rely solely on engine outputs. The CC GM can nudge the play in the direction where the engine evaluation is wrong. One interesting observation by a strong CC player I read was, “If you are down material and the machine says the score is about even, you have the advantage.”
      Engines are materialists, so in the final analysis, when it comes to positional judgment, you have to rely on your own, not the engine’s!

365Chess

      I have just discovered what is probably the best online database available. It contains 3.5 million games and includes such features as: opening explorer, search games, search for positions, bookmark games, ECO codes, analysis board and Chess Puzzles.
      Plus if you want to donate $10 using Paypal you can also get these additional features: Download games as PGN, create your own database, player's opening explorer, search & browse the Masters Database plus unlimited chess puzzles. They say If you're not satisfied with what you get, you'll get an immediate refund of your contribution. No questions asked! They also have games posted from the latest GM tournaments. 365Chess Link

How to Become a Chess Master...or not

      What is a master? A master is everybody’s secret evaluation of his own ability. Anyway, several years ago I came across a very interesting article at Chessville, Rose's Rants, by a player named Tom Rose who was what we call in the US an “Expert” as he was rated around 2100. In the introduction Rose wrote:

     " I had a well-prepared repertoire of simple openings. I knew basic endings well. I fought hard in inferior positions. I rarely made gross tactical blunders, and could spot an interesting tactical blow. This was enough to beat most of my opponents. As I plodded along, not blundering, most of my opponents would self-destruct within 40 moves."
      "I never really had any great understanding of the game or where the pieces belong. I never mastered the art of maneuvering and gradually improving a position until it becomes overwhelming. Whenever I met a really strong player I was mercilessly crushed."
      His goal was to increase his strength to that of a solid master and he mapped out his strategy. When I first read the articles I believed he was on the right track and it would only be a matter of time before he was well over 2200. Unfortunately Rose failed in his quest; he never got any better.
      He says it was because he did not love chess enough. He came to that realization right in the middle of a tournament game and asked himself, "Why am I doing this? I would rather be practicing the piano!" As he wrote, when it came to the sustained hard work of learning endgame theory, cataloguing and comparing middle game themes, internalizing positional ideas, meticulously preparing an opening repertoire, practicing calculating variations in real-game positions to the point where they can be made fast enough and accurately enough under time pressure, he neither enjoyed them nor had the ambition to do the required work. Many years ago a young friend of mine who was barely over 2200 told me that I had no idea how hard he had to work just to keep his rating over 2200. He eventually gave up chess.
      I can understand Rose’s feelings because it was over 30 years ago in between rounds of a tournament that I asked myself the same question. “Why am I doing this?” When it comes to chess, I realized that correspondence was my preferred method because there’s no rush. The truth is I have always been “chessed out” after playing about two hours and in CC I am not forced to do anything unless I feel like it… things can always wait a couple of days.
      Still, if you are young enough, have the time to devote to the game and have the ambition, I think Rose was on the right track and his articles are definitely worth reading because I think he hit on the right method. It just doesn’t work if you have other interests, a demanding job, family or lack the necessary gumption.

New World CC Champion

Pertti Lehikoinen of Finland is the 20th (2004) World Correspondence Champion. Yes, that’s 2004, so if my math is correct it has taken 7 years to complete this event. He finished his last game in 2008, but there was one game remaining before the final standings could be determined. The game he was waiting to finish was a 110 move draw…that’s how long it takes the big boys to play! Play started on October 24, 2004 and was played using post cards. Lehikoinen wrote a short summary of his career HERE.
Tie-breaking decided the final standings:
1) Pertti Lehikoinen (Fin) 9 (SB 58,75)
2) Stefan Winge (SWE) 9 (SB 58,25)
3) Miloš Kratochvíl (CZE) 8,5
4) Horst Broß (GER) 8,5
Crosstable

Of course these guys use engines to enhance their play and I can testify from my tournaments at Lechenicher SchachServer that even when you are using an engine things are not as easy as they sound.
      I’ll do a post on it when the game is finished, but I have one interesting game where it was made clear that in order to be successful in these kinds of events you have to 1) have good positional judgment and 2) let your engines (plural) run for days then 3) check its evaluations to make sure you aren’t getting a “false reading.”
      In this particular game I am Black and we were following a Capablanca game in which he scored a quick win. I couldn’t figure out why my opponent entered the line until I got his move where he “improved” on the play of Capa’s opponent. At least that was the initial evaluation of both Houdini and Fritz 12. That left me wondering just how good was Capa’s judgment? Had he missed something? After a lot of analysis with Houdini I came to the conclusion that no, Capa was correct.
      Analysis was no easy task because the engine would often flip flop on its evaluations. Also I noticed that sometimes its evaluation would drastically change after the move was made on the board.
      What this all amounts to is that what happens, as I’ve long suspected, is most engine users only let their engines “think” for a minute or two, or perhaps less, before playing its selected move. Many, many times that initial evaluation is wrong. That’s why to be really good at CC these days where engine use is pretty much a given at the master level, you simply must run more than one engine, let them run for a long time, don’t trust those long outputs but check them move by move and, finally, you must be able to accurately judge the true value of the engine’s analysis.
      All that explains why these GM CC tournaments take years to complete and why people who rely solely on an engine do poorly at the master level. These CC players, while they may not have high OTB ratings still understand a thing or two about chess.  Are they equal to top level OTB GM's in their understanding?  No, of course not, but they do understand chess pretty well.  It also proves that when you run into a typical engine user in CC play who is only letting his engine run a few seconds, or at most, a minute or so before playing its recommended move can be defeated…if you’re good enough.

1961 Ohio Junior Championship

      Time for some nostalgia. Things have changed a lot since this game was played. The USCF had about 6000 members and at 16, I was one of the younger players in the tournament. This was my first OTB event and my +1 -2 =3 resulted in an initial rating of 1667. Unfortunately the scores of all but two games have been lost.
       I had a first round draw against an 1802. In the second round I had a particularly obnoxious opponent. At one point he looked up and informed me he was announcing mate in 8 moves! I told him I didn’t see and wanted to play it out at which point he got quite agitated because I refused to believe him. In frustration he mumbled an expletive directed at me and went to fetch the tournament director, Jim Schroeder. Schroeder looked at the board and told the guy, “You ain’t Morphy. Play it out.” This got the guy really upset and on every move he balled up his fist and hammered the clock (mine, of course.) This got me really mad, but I didn’t say anything. I got even madder when the little jerk mated me in 8 moves.

      This loss resulted in a third round pairing against a 1200 rated girl named Bonnie. I mopped up the floor with her and when I made my last move she resigned, we signed the scoresheets and I turned them in. A little later, looking at the wall chart, I noticed she had been given the win. I went to the TD and he returned the scoresheets and I saw what happened. We both had neglected to write down my last move and had written “Resigns” in the White column (my color). Schroeder told me to see my opponent and hope she would agree to the correction. Naturally I did not expect her to agree! Fortunately Bonnie was not only cute, she was very sweet and told me she did not want to take credit for my win. So we fixed the scoresheets to reflect the proper results.
      In this game, the only remaining score I have, my opponent was rated, if I remember correctly, around 1800. It was a hard fought draw with quite a few mistakes by both sides. For a long time I thought it was pretty well played, but the advent of engines changed my opinion of a lot of my early games!
      At the time I was under the influence of Botvinnik which explains my choice of openings.  I was fascinated with playing the English with a P on d3, fianchetto the f1B and then play b4 and advancing the Q-side P's.  It was the same setup that netted me a draw against my first round opponent.  Strangely enough in that game he also played an early advance of his h-Pawn, got an overwhelmingh K-side attack then botched it, resulting in a draw.
      In this game Black also played for a K-side attack with 12…h4 and things quickly got very messy as the position was rife with tactical possibilities which neither of us handled very well. The ending was not badly played though.

GM Max Dlugy Site

I ran across retired Grandmaster Max Dlugy's site the other day and the only thing of interest on the site is his games section: nine annotated games against Kasparov, Di Firmian, Gulko, Zapata, Howell, Short, Rhode and Peters.   The board layout is nice and his notes, while not copious, are clear and succinct. Worth playing through. Too bad he left chess just so he could become a millionaire!

Chess Mail

Chess Mail lists links to site where you can play correspondence chess.

      One site I would avoid is International e-mail Chess Club. You play by e-mail (not the server) under your real name. Although you don’t really need it, use of a free software program to keep records is invaluable because you need to keep track of the times when moves were received and sent and total reflection time. That’s a lot of records to keep without the help of a program like ectool. So why avoid the site? I recently registered there and was assigned a rating of 2060 based on my CCLA/ICCF rating. So what’s the problem? My rating very nearly puts me in the site’s top 100 players. What that means is they must not have a lot of members! Indeed, they advise that if you sign up for a tournament, there may be a long wait. IECG was very similar and last December they closed up shop for that very reason…it was becoming too difficult in this day of servers to find people who wanted t play using e-mail.
      Unfortunately Chess Mail hasn’t been kept up to date so many of the links don’t work. I post it though because if you are looking to play CC it has a list of places you can check out. My personal preference these days is Queen Alice which I reviewed here.

Bobby Fischer 1955

New pdf book for download:  All known Bobby Fischer games played in 1955 plus, as a bonus, all his games from the 1956 US Championship.  Annotated, brief bio up to his world championship match, pictures.  Over 90 games.  Download

Yahoo and Pogo Chess Cheats

I ran across this ad today. I can't believe anybody would actually purchase cheats for these sites!

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Chess Thinking Systems

      This is a fairly new Blog and one that looks like the author is trying to make a little money selling books. That’s not a bad thing. If I could figure out how to make money from this Blog I’d do it but, seriously, who’s going to buy anything from a Blog?

      What I did find interesting though was the author’s description of the styles of play of such greats as Steinitz, Lasker, Nimzovich and others up to Tahl. Other great players will be added later. Interesting reading.  LINK

Calculation Training Feature in Fritz 12

A complete explanation of Fritz’ “Calculation Feature” can be found at Chessbase.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
      I only discovered this feature the other day while messing around with the program. This feature allows you to take nearly any position and turn it into a kind of problem. After deciding on a position in which to train, you activate the feature.
      When you move a piece it's not actually moved on the screen's board. What you do is mentally calculate variations by moving the pieces in your mind's eye just like in a real game. Of course the program doesn't know what you're thinking so you have to "move" the pieces on the board but they don't actually move; they are just recorded in the program's memory.

      I tried this out but must be missing something because I took the position from the game below (Fun Blitz Game) after 21… Nc5 and tried calculating some variations.
      Although in the initial position White’s supposed to be about 1.5 P’s ahead, I calculated a variation that resulted in equality and received 5 points. So apparently it’s not measuring the worth of the final position, but rather how many errors you made in calculation and/or how serious any gross blunders were. Actually I’m not sure exactly WHAT it’s measuring because next I tried calculating a line where I deliberately made bad moves and finished with an impossible move. It gave me overall score of +1 point…not sure why. I also noticed when I tried making an impossible move it just evaluated up to the point where the impossible move was played.
      Unless I totally missed something I don’t see any value in this feature. Looks like a bell (or maybe it's a whistle...who knows?) that could have been left out.

Houdini and Fritz Settings

Anyone wishing to explore the best settings or most any other questions regarding these issues can visit Ahmed-Chess forums.  Information on making opening books can be found HERE.
Instructional videos on installing, configuring and just about anything else you want to know about Fritz 12 are HERE.

Chess World Review

      ChessWorld full membership costs $28.50 US dollars or 22.5 EU Euros or 20 GB Pounds. Free membership offers quite limited access to site benefits but if all you want to do is play chess then lack of other benefits really doesn't matter. They offer only correspondence chess with no variants. Tournament play offered consists of thematic, team and league events, round robin (all-play-all), knockout and pyramids. You can also play individual games if you desire by accepting challenges or issuing your own. They also offer a pretty nice Homepage where you can post all kinds of stuff about yourself or anything you are interested in. You have to be a full member though if you want your picture posted on your home page.

     
      What I liked about the site was that I could set my own initial rating and so avoid having to slog through a hundred games against low rated players just to get decent competition. You will play a game against a “welcomer” who will be rated near your rating and who will be willing to answer any questions.
      Well moderated forums consist of chess, book reviews, openings, etc. Also great fun if you are so inclined is the social forum where you can chat with players from all over the world but unfortunately that's a full membership forum.  Full membership offers you a wealth of resources to improve your game…much of it contributed by members. Because the site is located in England, they often have member meet ups so a lot of the players are well known to each and many are FIDE rated with lots of OTB experience.
      If I had to pay for a site this would be the one. In fact I did pay to play there for six years before discovering Queen Alice where I can get decent competition for free. Five stars for this site!

Fun Blitz Game

When I played 5.Bxf7+ in this game the idea was just to have some fun and see if my opponent was any good at defending.  After the game I let Houdini ponder the situation and as it turns out, the move was neither better nor worse than alternatives.  The game quickly developed into a razor sharp position where we both had moments where we played quite well and moments where we made some bad moves.  Fortunately for me in the final position Black used most of his remaining time trying to figure out what to do against my threatened R invasion.  Even though it was as plain as the nose on your face, he somehow managed to overlook the obvious 34…Bd4 blocking the d-file. I thought it was odd because it had been sitting on that square just the move before. In the heat of battle, who knows what we’ll do?