Alekhine’s Hoaxes

Alekhine was accused of occasionally "improving" games.  According to GM Andy Soltis, "He allegedly made up games against fictitious opponents in which he came out the victor and had these games published in various chess magazines."  The most famous example is his game with five queens.

Chess historian Edward Winter discovered another game Alekhine allegedly won in 15 moves involving a Queen sacrifice at Sabadell in 1945. Some photos of the game in progress were discovered that showed the players during the game and the position on the board. Based on the position of the pieces in the photo, the game could not have taken the course that was given in the published version.

Alekhine had the audacity to publish the five queen game in his book “My Best Games of Chess 1908-1923.” For many years it was thought that this game was authentic but Alekhine later claimed that the game was not played against Grigoriev but against an anonymous player in Moscow in 1915. 

Dr. Albert Buschke discovered that the game was originally published in 1925 by J. du Mont as "Alekhine-N.N." Alekhine had shown the game to du Mont in 1923 and it was du Mont, who went on to translate into English both Alekhine's collections of best games, 1908-1923 and 1924-39, that actually was responsible for the game’s publication.  However,  Alekhine had close relations with du Mont so certainly had ample opportunity to correct the mistake but he never did.  Buschke discovered the five queens were merely a possible side-variation of a game that that actually been played in wartime Russia (Grigoriev-Alekhine, Moscow 1915).

Alekhine also faked his “Doctor” title.  After Alekhine's death du Mont wrote Memoir of Alekhine and claimed that after World War One Alekhine "managed ..... to renew his legal studies and to become a Doctor-at- Law of the French Faculty".  This was not true. Alekhine had studied law before the WW One but his addiction to chess prevented his receiving a degree.

Nikalai Grigoriev was a Russian player and a composer of endgame studies. He was born in 1895 in Moscow, and he died there in 1938.

His father, was a professional musician in the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra. At the age of eighteen, Grigoriev joined the Moscow chess club and played in the Moscow tournament of 1915.  In 1917, he was drafted into the Imperial Russian army in the First World War and was sent to the front. He was wounded and returned severely ill.

In early October 1937, Grigoriev returned from a trip to the Far East and Siberia, where he gave lectures and played. The NKVD militia on the train arrested him. Grigoriev was frail and he lost consciousness after the use of force and his throat began to constantly bleed. After an interrogation, the interrogators had to wash down the room. An unexpected illness then confined him to bed and severe complications required immediate surgery. As a result Grigoriev was severely weakened and died of lung cancer.

Black to Move and Win

Drag Mouse to highlight solution: 1...Re4

Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation Experiment

I didn’t feel like being subjected to a long, boring game, so decided to try the unusual recapture with the b-Pawn in this game and hope to set up a solid P-formation with P’s on c7, d6 and c5.  Then play the B to b7 with the hope of initiating a K-side attack.  The open b-file would be occupied with the R and cause White some concern about defending his b-Pawn. It didn’t work…not even close and for the whole game I was fighting White’s better development, more space and strong initiative. 

Some of My Favorite Chess Books

Throughout the years I have read many chess books.  Below is a list of books that I have (or have had) in my personal library that have stood the test of time and are worthy of owning even today. All of them were fascinating reading even if I didn’t learn anything.  I gave up trying to improve years ago, choosing to play for the enjoyment of it instead and the books listed below are a few that have added to the enjoyment.

Technique in Chess by Gerald Abrahams

Guide to the general concepts of chess technique and methods for using technique to plan ahead. 200 examples from actual play.

Positional Chess Handbook by Isreal Gelfer

495 positions, starting with the endgame and then covering the middlegame. This is the type of book needed by all players not yet masters. The diagrams are poor and the translation bad.

Pawn Power in Chess by Hans Kmoch

Original discussion of pawn play which isolates its elements and elaborates on various aspects. Somewhat difficult to read because of Kmoch’s made up definitions.

The Art of Checkmate by Renaud and Kahn

Classification of 23 mating situations, including Legal’s pseudo-sacrifice, the double check, smothered mate, Greco’s mate, the Corridor mate, many others. 127 games by Tartakower, Janowski, Rubinstein, Blackburne, others, illustrating positional maneuvers leading to these mates. Review quizzes test progress.

How to Force Checkmate by Fred Reinfeld

Not all Reinfeld books were trash. This one has 300 diagrammed positions, subdivided into situations of mate in one, two or three moves, introduce you to a vast array of checkmate situations. You will not need a board so this is a good book for travel and idle moments.

The Art of Sacrifice in Chess by Rudolf Spielmann

One of the greatest attacking players of all time was a great writer. Based upon 37 of Spielmann’s games, he explains the sacrifices which occur and classifies them. Spielmann was a Jew who escaped from Austria to Sweden and was forced to write chess books to make money.

100 Soviet Chess Miniatures by Peter H. Clarke

Fascinating games played by Soviet chess masters, taken from the records of the Soviet Chess.

500 Master Games of Chess by Tartakower, and du Mont, J.

Arranged by opening. Good introduction to the best players of all time and a good way to learn about the different openings. Great bargin.

Combinations: The Heart of Chess by Irving Chernev 

356 diagrams. This is another good book you don't need a board for.

My Best Games of Chess 1908-1937 by Alekhine

This is a great bargain of two books bound together. My Best Games 1908-23 shows his dynamic, aggressive, perpetual attacking style. He studied the endgame in order to defeat Capablanca in the 1927 World Championship Match. My Best Games 1924-37 are more show his great endgame skill. There are more than 220 games with his annotations. Alekhine took great pride in trying to find the truth in chess.

200 Open Games by Bronstein 

This is a treasure because Bronstein was the greatest combinational player of his time.  All games begin 1.e4 e5. When Bronstein wanted to win he was the best player in the world, and in most of these games he tried to win, but he also lost many of them. One word of warning: There are many factual errors.

Chess World Title Contenders and Their Styles by Danny Kopec and Craig Pritchett

Highly recommended! Title is misleading. Only one player actually became a contender.  87 games in figurine algebraic by Tony Miles, Jan Timman, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Walter Browne, Robert Hubner, Zoltan Rible, Ulf Andersson, Garry Kasparov.

100 Selected Games by Botvinnik

This book is still one of the best individual game collections ever. The games were annotated by Botvinnik before he became World Champion in 1948. After that his play deteriorated.  Botvinnik gained his title because other Soviet players were forced to throw games to him. Personally Botvinnik was vicious and ambitious. Still, the 100 games in this book are excellent.

Morphy’s Games of Chess by Sergeant

300 games against such masters as Anderssen, Harrwitz, Mongredien, Bird, Paulsen and others. Annotations by Sergeant, Steinitz, Anderssen and Morphy himself. This is the book that every player should read because it shows how to beat the “average” player.

Critical Points

According to GM Arthur Yusupov, “To many people it seems that grandmasters simply calculate variations a little deeper.  Or they know their opening theory slightly better,   But in fact the real difference is something else.  You can pick out two essential qualities in which those with higher titles are superior to others; the ability to sense the critical moment in a game, and a finer understanding of various positional problems.”

The ability to identify critical moments in a game is important because it is those positions that will influence the further course of the game.  In fact GM Edmar Mednis, writing his great book titled How to Beat Bobby Fischer in which he analyzed Fischer’s defeats, always showed the position where he isolated the losing move; the move where Fischer missed the critical point.  Also, sometimes in GM analysis you will read comments such as, “Not a bad move, but it embarks upon the wrong plan.” Or some similar comment. These are critical moments.

Every strong player has the intuition that tells him when he has arrived at a critical position, bu,t as with any GM’s intuition, it is often difficult to define exactly when such positions are reached.  I think sometimes GM’s cannot explain such things…they just know.

You would think working with an engine would make it easy for us to know when a critical position has arisen on the board, but that’s not the case because engines, critical position or not, treat every position the same and calculate variations.  GM Jonathan Rowson spent an entire chapter in his book, The Seven Deadly Chess Sins, discussing how to identify critical positions or key moments.  Rowson wrote, "To miss such moments can be considered ‘sinful’ in that it usually results from a basic misunderstanding of the nature of chess assessments and of how they can and do change.”  He then went on to explain, “…it is very difficult, if not impossible, to give any clear definition of what a key moment, or critical position actually is…”  Still, Rowson went on to try and define what the circumstances are and how, when we see them, to know we have reached such a position.  His list:

1-You begin to see pending counterplay for your opponent
2-The prevailing trend seems to have stopped and you can’t see any way for the advantage (for either side) to be increased
3-You have lots of reasonable moves, but none seems to be outstanding
4-You opponent’s last move was unexpected or in some way unusual

In OTB games these are indicators that a critical position has been reached and a careful positional reconnaissance needs to be performed and the position reevaluated.

In Modern Chess Analysis, CC GM Robin Smith gives the following signposts that warn you that you have reached a critical position in you analysis. When you see these signs being given by an engine, take heed:

1-The current evaluation is saying one thing but the trend, or an engine vs. engine tournament from that position, is indicating otherwise.
2-Different programs suggest different moves
3-Engines are suggesting a move in the type of position they often do not understand.  This usually involves castling, exchanging pieces in the ending when such exchanges are not forced, entering positions in which there are highly forcing lines and moves that alter the P-structure.
4-The potential exists for creating positions of a type engines do not understand like fortresses
5-In theoretical positions the engine’s evaluation differs from that of GM’s
6-One side seems to have an advantage but the engines can’t see a way to increase the advantage.

When you see any of the first four indicators in your OTB game, you must reevaluate the position. GM Alex Yermolinsky discusses this, what he calls “trends,” in his book, The Road to Chess Improvement. Of course this is going to call for some understanding of facets of the game too many lower rated players like to ignore: strategy and endings.  It's equally obvious that average players aren't going to excel at this kind of thing, but it does help to be aware of such things exist.

In conducting proper engine analysis, if you see any of the six signs coming from your engine, you know it’s time to evaluate things from a positional point of view.  After playing on Lechenicher SchachServer, where engine use is allowed, for the past several years I can tell you the above listed six signs happen frequently in almost every game. Of course none of us are Grandmasters, so all the advice in the world is not going to guarantee we will make the right decision, but I can tell you a few things that may help in making sure you select the best line.

As several titled CC players have noted, the analysis must be broad before you start going deep.  That means being interactive with your engine and looking at as many moves as seem reasonable to you and adding them to the suggested engine move list.  When you have narrowed things down to a few plausible moves, only then can you let the engine evaluate the different lines.  And bear in mind a short evaluation time won’t do; it may take several hours and some shootouts using a couple of different engines from the position of interest before you can get a reasonably accurate idea of what the best continuation is. Sometimes you will just have to use your judgment.  Take the following position:

In this position after 1…Bc8, but it should be clear that Black is going to have a very hard time getting his B and a1R into play and that can’t be good even though the evaluation shows White is only about ½ Pawn better.  The surprising thing is that if you back up a couple of moves from the diagrammed position, the engines don’t even recommend White’s playing for the P-push to c6 because they do not see the position as anything more that slightly in White’s favor.  Run a shootout from the position it soon becomes clear that Black is reduced to complete passivity and White quickly establishes a decisive superiority. 2…Be8 fared no better.  Black must search for a continuation earlier in the game that does not allow White to advance his P to c6 unless he is content to hope that his opponent relies solely on engine suggestions and avoids pushing the P to c6.  Of course if it turns out that White does some interactive analysis on his own and discovers the P-push, Black will be in serious trouble.  So even with engines it is possible to play what NM Dan Heisman calls “hope chess.”  You play a move and hope your opponent doesn’t find the best reply.  It also emphasizes the point that even engine analysis requires some human input and that can be a valuable learning experience even for us non-GM’s,

The Bratko-Kopec Test

The Bratko-Kopec Test was designed by Dr. Ivan Bratko and Dr. Danny Kopec in 1982 to evaluate human or machine chess ability based on the presence or absence of certain knowledge (i.e. Master, Expert, Novice, etc). This test has been a standard for nearly 20 years in computer chess. Experience has shown it very reliable in corresponding to the chess rating of humans and machines.

There are 24 positions. You are given 2 minutes to select up to 4 preferred moves (in priority order) for each position. Each position (except two) is deemed to have one best move. Scoring depends upon this priority:  Take the test

The Man in the Red Beret

      Read an interesting article on a colorful chess master named Jude Acers. Acers is known for playing against all comers in the New Orleans Gazebo restaurant and for wearing his red beret.  Acers is a great showman and used to tour the country giving simultaneous exhibitions, twice holding the world record for having played the most opponents in a simultaneous exhibition.
      His USCF rating was 2399, just one point shy of a Senior Master title.  He got his rating mostly by playing matches against players who were rated far, far below him. This led the USCF Executive Director Ed Edmondson to freeze Acers rating at 2399 until he played in an open tournament; a mandate with which Acers never complied.  Acers hadn’t played in a tournament for nearly 40 years when he entered the World Senior Championship in 2007 and emerged with a performance rating of 2289.
      Acers barely survived Hurricane Katrina and lived in a displaced persons camp for some time but as New Orleans recovered, he resumed his customary chess table in the French Quarter.

Balabaev vs. Smith

      The most helpful book I have is CC GM Robin Smith’s “Modern Chess Analysis” which, though badly outdated, still gives good useful advice on conducting engine analysis.  While browsing the book the other day I came across the following interesting game and Smith’s analysis.
       In the book, Smith played back in the days of Fritz 5, so much of his commentary is no longer valid because of the great increase in strength of today’s engines.  Still, if you have ever played over GM games with an engine you will occasionally find annotations where their evaluation does not agree with what the engine is telling you.  When that happens, my advice is: believe the GM.
      In the book Smith describes how in those days using multiple engines, he let them run for hours, or sometimes overnight, and played engine vs. engine tournaments to help him in search for hidden ideas, flaws and such like in his games.  He also pointed out many cases in which engine evaluations were just plain wrong. That’s still the case today even with much stronger engines.  At the upper levels of CC play, those who rely solely on engine generated moves will lose nearly all their games against opponents who are of at least IM strength and who are also using an engine.
       In this game, it was interesting to compare Smith’s notes to the output of today’s strong engines.  For this game I used Houdini, Critter and Spike, but was unable to find any flaws in Smith’s analysis.  One thing I did notice was that his claim that Black was winning could not be substantiated because, just like in Smith’s case, the engines showed an advantage for Black but White was still able to hold the draw.

More old Photos



Old Photo

I couldn’t resist showing this undated photo of a simultaneous exhibition by Samueal Reshevsky held in Cleveland, Ohio. On the left is Reshevsky’s father, Jacob Rzeschewski and on the right Charles Azenberg, the Reshevsky’s secretary and manager. Reshevsky scored +17 -1 =2.  The loss came as a result of  adjudication after he had left to catch the midnight train for New York City.

Raymond Weinstein

The story of International Master Raymond Weinstein (born April 25, 1941) is a tragic one.

Weinstein was born in Brooklyn, New York and attended Erasmus Hall High School where he was two grades ahead of Bobby Fischer. 

 Erasmus Hall High School

He won the 1958 U.S. Junior Chess Championship and played in the U.S. Championship five times, played for the American team that won the 1960 World Student Team Championship.  In the latter event he tied for the gold medal on board 3. Weinstein was awarded his IM title in 1962. 

His best tournament result was in the 1960-61 U.S. Championship when he finished third, behind Bobby Fischer and William Lombardy.  This result qualified him to play in the Interzonal held in Stockholm  in 1962, but he did not play.  His last event was the 1963-1964 U.S. Championship where had the unusual result of 5 wins, 6 loses and no draws.  He never played again.  In 1963, Weinstein graduated from Brooklyn College with a degree in psychology and went to Amsterdam to attend graduate school.
In describing his play the British Chess Magazine wrote that he had the “killer instinct.”  Unfortunately, the same could be said for his away from the board personality.

While in Amsterdam he was studying under the Dutch psychology professor and International Master Johan Barendregt whom he assaulted.  As a result of that incident Weinstein was deported to the U.S. where he was detained in a half-way house.  While staying in the half-way house, he slit his 83-year-old roommate’s throat with a razor when the old man made derogatory remarks about Weinstein’s mother who was also institutionalized.  Weinstein was deemed incapable to stand trial and was sent to the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Manhattan’s Wards Island where he remains.

Author and chess activist Sam Sloan visited Weinstein in 1996 and described him as nothing like the person Sloan knew in their days as junior players. He described Weinstein as obese and having a habit of rubbing the side or underneath his nose.  During the 45 minutes Sloan spent with him, Weinstein did not utter a single word and stared blankly at Sloan the entire time.  When Sloan spoke of Kasparov, Karpov, Fischer, Anand and other top grandmasters Weinstein gave no recognition that he even knew what Sloan was talking about. The visit consisted mostly of long periods of silence and when visiting hours were over Weinstein got up and went to the attendant and told her rather heatedly that he wanted to go back to his ward.

Weinstein was an important historical figure in U.S. chess and his life was a tragedy, but he deserves to be recognized for his achievements during his all too brief career. In the following game he defeats British IM Robert Wade.

Komodo3 Engine Warning!

DO NOT USE THIS ENGINE!!

As I pointed out in a previous post, the evaluation function of this engine is suspect.  Take a look at this position, Black to play:
:

It's obvious that White stands better and Houdini 1.5 x64 recommends 1...Qc7 with White's advantage at about 1/3 of a Pawn.  Wanting to check this with another engine, I set up the position and left Komodo3 ponder it while I went off to do something else. 5-1/2 hours later I returned to discover Komodo had analyzed the position 13 moves deep and was showing the position as equal.  It's recommendation began with 1...Bxg2 2.Nde4.  1...Bxg2?? is a horrible move because after 2.f3 Black loses a piece.  Houdini evaluates the position after 2.f3 as White having an advantage of over 2P's; other engines agree. 

Just to make sure Komodo wasn't seeing something in the position other engines were missing, I did some further analysis using Houdini, Komodo and Critter and managed to come up with a line where Black did get 3 P's for the pieces, but it hardly mattered because all the engines, including Komodo, agreed that Black was quite lost. 

Bisguier at Bled 1961

Click to enlarge



       Last month marked the 50^th anniversary of the gigantic 1961 Bled internatinal tournament.  The tournament at Bled, then Yugoslavia, now Slovenia, was held during September and was one of the strongest tournaments of all time. Among its 20 participants were former World Champion Mikhail Tal, who finished first, a point ahead of 18 year old Bobby Fischer.  Fischer finished ahead of such greats as Petrosian, Keres, and Gligoric. Fischer scored his first win ever over Tal.

       Most players of today know GM Arthur Bisguier (born 8 October 1929) as a gregarious old fellow who, at the age of 82, is still playing chess and who barely holds a master’s rating.  What most of them don’t know is that Bisguier won two U.S. Junior Championships (1948, 1949), three U.S. Open Championships (1950, 1956, 1959), and in 1954 won the U.S. Championship. Bisguier also qualified for two Interzonal tournaments (1955, 1962) and in 2005, the USCF named him "Dean of American Chess".
      Most of Bisguier's play after the mid-1960s was limited to U.S. events and for many years, he played in towns throughout the U.S. giving exhibitions to popularize chess and the USCF and was the representative the USCF chose to send to play at hospitals, colleges, or prisons, so the public could get a chance to play the Grandmaster and former U.S. Champion.
       In his heyday he was a very strong play and while never a “world class” player, his strength put him just below that elite group. The Bled tournament was one of Bisguier’s despite finishing +5 -7 =7 and tying for 12^th place with Donner and Olafsson he defeated Keres, Geller and Najdorf. He is a member of the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame.
       In the following game, Bisguier met Keres, who happened to be Bisguier’s first chess idol, in round three where Keres suffered his only defeat in the tournament.

How to Study Chess at Home

Or it could be titled “An IM’s Workshop.”  IM D. Salinnikov wrote a brief article on how he studies chess that may be of some interest to serious students. It can be found at the Grandmaster’s Club site HERE.

He made an interesting comment in the article: “In September 1997, arriving home from the Ukraine, about 2 weeks I worked on chess 14-16 hours a day, and six months later there was a huge progress: in three open tournaments in a row, I completed International Master norm, and raised the rating from 2370 to 2490.” Wow!  That’s a lot!

The Beginner’s Game Opening

I discovered an interesting website that offers a free 212 page book that allows you to…well, let the author explain!

It is the greatest discovery ever made in chess, one that will change forever the way the way the game is played…  Read this book carefully and you will master the game of chess. If you are new to chess, you will learn to play fast! In a few minutes you will play the opening moves  of the game as well as anybody. In a few hours, you will play with confidence well beyond the opening. In the few weeks it will take you to go thru this book, from a complete beginner you will become a solid player, able to confront even the strongest opponents, and offer them a tough game.  If you already play chess, then take this book seriously, because it challenges all of chess opening theory and practice. This system is better than anything you play now, or have ever played.

 The opening and/or defensive setup is the same for either White or Black and looks like this:

      The author, known only as “Pafu” says this same opening position can be reached in most games, with white or black, regardless of how the adversary plays.

       The problem with this formation, of course is that the most that can be achieved is equality (as White), or a slightly inferior game (as Black) because the setup does not place the pieces in attacking positions and the opponent is granted free reign of the center and a substantial advantage in space. In amateur games these are not so easily exploited so there is no real disadvantage in playing them.

       This book contains a lot of games involving engines and Pafu recognizes that not all 8 moves can be played against any defense, but he claims that six or seven can always be played which is true. So, if you play a lot of Internet Blitz chess or if you haven’t yet reached the level of strong master, this might be worth looking at.  The book is in PDF format and is very well produced. I’ll let the author sum things up:

The Beginner’s Game is revolutionary, introducing a new philosophy and practice of chess never seen before.   DOWNLOAD the book

Diane Saveride

Watching John Fedorowicz and Oscar Panno analyzing

Born on November 25, 1954. Thanksgiving Day. She won the US Women's Chess Championship in 1975 and 1976.  In 1977 and 1978, she shared the Championship with Rachel Crotto who won in 1979, but in the next championship, in 1981, Savereide regained the title. She also won in 1984 and held the title until 1986.   She was the US Women's Champion for 9 years, winning a total of six tournaments.

In the 1988 Olympiads, Saveride played on the American women's team which was generally considered weak in the Olympiads, but that year they pulled off an upset by drawing their match against the Russian team. The surprising thing was that Savereide, the only non-Russian playing on the American team, was considered the weakest player on the team but in the match against the Soviets, she was the only player to score a win. The win was against Irina Levitina, a former official challenger for the Woman's World Championship and US Women's Champion 1991, 1992, 1993. The game was a drawish ending that she converted into a win through sheer determination’

In the early 1970’s in Southern California’s Santa Monica Bay Chess Club was at that point one of the better young players in the area being rated around 1500-1600!  But something happened, and her game took off.  At that time she was known to be an intense student of the game.  In the beginning she didn't seem greatly talented but she became serious about chess in late high school.  Had she, like kids today, started earlier, who knows how far she might have gotten?

She eventually graduated from UCLA where she specialized in Literature, with specific expertise in Russian Literature and modern fiction. She used her Russian skills to study chess. Professionally, Diane has been a programmer and systems analyst since the 1980s.

Diane Saveride was the first American woman to take a "modern" professional approach to chess. The generation long dominated by Gisela Gresser and Mona Karff approached the game with enjoyment and creativity, but not as a full-time occupation worthy of consistent and intense preparation. Diane was a serious openings analyst, especially known for her use of the Keres attack against the Sicilian Scheveningen and of the White side of the Ruy Lopez.  Since the 1970s-1980s, scholastic programs and immigration have raised the level of play among American women but in those days Saveride was known for her intensity of preparation and play.

Nearing thirty, with seven national titles under her belt, she tried to make a go as a professional player and in the summer of 1984, she took time off from her job as a computer programmer to play in tournaments, but didn't make enough money so she quit. She has rarely played since.

I remember seeing her playing in one of the US Opens sometime in the 1970’s and the thing I remember about her is she had very long, well-manicured fingernails!