The Unknown Steinitz

     Steinitz is known as the man who laid the foundations of positional play with his games and writings, but few realize that in his younger days he was known for his romantic style and was nicknamed "The Austrian Morphy". Objectively speaking, his games from the early years do not always make much of an impression because of his opponent’s feeble play.
     Steinitz was the first undisputed world champion, holding the title from 1886 to 1894. Steinitz lost his title to Lasker in 1894 and also lost a rematch in 1896–97. Steinitz had an all-out attacking style that was common in the 1860s and did not unveil his positional style until 1873. His new style was controversial and some branded it as "cowardly." The debate over his positional theories was so bitter that it became known as the "Ink War" but by the 1890s Steinitz's theories were widely accepted and the next generation of top players acknowledged their correctness.
     All of Steinitz's successes up to 1872 were achieved in the attack-at-all-costs “Romantic” style, but in the tournament in Vienna in 1873 he unveiled his new "positional" style of play which was to become the basis of modern chess. Lasker, who was especially appreciative of Steinitz’ theories, wrote that his principles of strategy were “the greatest landmark in the history of chess.”
     Steinitz’ new positional theory was based on the fact that the position must have some signs or indicators that tell one what plan must be followed. Steinitz defined positional features and discovered that brilliant attacks are often successful only because of weak defense. For him, well-founded attacks were based on the accumulation of small advantages. He began to realize that a player should not look for a winning combination unless he held the advantage in some form.
     Of his own play Steinitz wrote, “No great player blundered oftener than I done. I was champion of the world for twenty-eight years because I was twenty years ahead of my time. I played on certain principles, which neither Zukertort nor anyone else of his time understood. The players of today, such as Lasker, Tarrasch, Pillsbury, Schlechter and others have adopted my principles, and as is only natural, they have improved upon what I began, and that is the whole secret of the matter.”
     Bobby Fischer wrote, “He is the so-called father of the modern school of chess; before him, the King was considered a weak piece and players set out to attack the King directly. Steinitz claimed that the King was well able to take care of itself, and ought not to be attacked until one had some other positional advantage. He understood more about the use of squares than Morphy and contributed a great deal more to chess theory.”
     The following game is from Steinitz’ early period. His opponent was Augustus Mongredien (1807–1888), a corn merchant, a political economist, writer and a leading amateur British master. Born in London, he was the son of a French officer who fled to England after Bonaparte's coup d'état in 1798. Gradually he withdrew from business and devoted most of his attention to literary pursuits. He was a good musician, an excellent botanist and was elected president of the Chess Club in 1839 ; he had knowledge of seven languages. In 1859 Mongredien played a chess match against Morphy and after drawing the first game, he lost the next seven. In 1862 he played in the first international tournament in London, finishing 11th of 14 with 3 points.

Northwest Chess

News from Washington and Oregon...lots of interesting stuff
For example:
Games Historical Events and Publications Includes "Best of Northwest Chess" collection of articles.
Instructional - Interesting series of instructional articles by former Washington State Chess Champion James Hurt, republished from 1938: (PDF files)
The Martian System in Chess
Old news page (2004 to date)
Old tournament news page (2003 to date)
People: Includes interviews, memorials, etc. 
Also, "Historical Events and Publications" section for more articles about famous chess players and their games.
 
VISIT SITE

Dr. Anthony Saidy

 

At the 2002 US Championship

      Dr. Anthony Saidy (born May 16, 1937) is an International Master who played in the U.S. Championship many times from 1960 to 1974. His Elo rating peaked at 2532 in 1964. Saidy attended Fordham University and is the son of playwright and screenwriter Fred Saidy.
     Saidy earned his International Master title in Italy by tying for 2nd in the grandmaster tournament at Venice in 1969. He played third board on the 1964 US Olympiad team in Tel Aviv and he won the Canadian Open in 1960; the American Open twice (1967 and 1992); was captain/coach of the U.S. Women's Olympiad Team at Buenos Aires in 1978.
     Saidy was a contemporary of Fischer and was a key figure in the effort necessary to get Fischer to play against Spassky for their World Championship match in 1972. Fischer hid out in Saidy's home in Douglaston, New York from where Saidy used all of his persuasive powers to get Fischer onto a plane bound for Reykjavik.
     Saidy is an avid book collector and possesses an enormous library on many subjects, including one of the largest privately owned collections of chess books in the United States.
     He is the author of several chess books, including The Battle of Chess Ideas, and The World of Chess. His main chess achievement was probably The Battle of Chess Ideas, an appreciation of the greatest living players, most of whom he had faced over the board. He also authored 1983, a Dialectical Novel , which is a work of "what if" political fiction. The book was inspired Saidy's four trips to the USSR, during which he was able to get to know Russians from all walks of life. The work gained high praise from Harrison Salisbury, Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent of the New York Times.
     In 2000, Saidy retired as an Los Angeles County doctor specializing in tuberculosis. He is twice divorced.
    He is a former vice-chair of the Coalition for Peace in the Middle East. Saidy wrote that ever since he went to Russia in 1960 where the US won the World Student Team Championship he "encountered peace-loving folks previously billed as the enemy" and that is when he said he ceased to be a typical “chauvinistic American.” Saidy said he developed friends from many countries which enlarged his perspective on the world. As a result he had an intense dislike for President (Dubya) Bush’s foreign policy in the Middle East and advocated "sending chess sets, medicines and food to Iraq - not bombs and soldiers." He had the same sentiments about North Korea.
     Here’s a quick win over GM Robert Byrne from the 1961 US Championship.

Botvinnink's Early Rival

 

    Grigory Y. Levenfish (March 21, 1889 – February 9, 1961) was a Russian grandmaster who scored his peak competitive results in the 1920s and 1930s.
     He was twice Soviet champion, in 1934 (tied with Ilya Rabinovich) and 1937. In 1937 he drew a match against future world champion Mikhail Botvinnik. Levenfish was also a well-regarded chess writer.
     Born in Poland, then part of the Russian Empire he spent most of his formative years in St. Petersburg, where he attended St. Petersburg State University and studied chemical engineering.
     His earliest recognition as a prominent chess player came when he won the St. Petersburg chess championship of 1909, and played in the strong Carlsbad (now Karlovy Vary) tournament of 1911, although he made a minus score in the very strong field. At age 22, this was to be his first and last tournament outside Russia or the Soviet Union.
     His play at the time was compared to that of Chigorin. Into the next decade, he continued to perform well in local tournaments, most notably winning the Leningrad Championships of 1922, 1924, and 1925 (jointly). At a national level too, he enjoyed an excellent record at the Soviet Championship; third in 1920, second in 1923, co-champion at Leningrad in 1934 (tied with Ilya Rabinovich at 12/19), and outright champion at Tbilisi in 1937 with 12.5/19.
     In the very strong Moscow International tournament of 1935, he scored 10.5/19, to tie for 6th-7th places. In a Soviet-only tournament at Leningrad 1936, he placed third with 8.5/14. Participation in the Leningrad-Moscow training tournament of 1939 resulted in a shared 3rd-6th place finish, with 10/17, behind winner Flohr and Samuel Reshevsky.
     In match play, he drew a 13 game match Botvinnik in 1937 and beat Vladimir Alatortsev in 1940.
     Despite his successes, Levenfish was virtually ignored by the Soviet chess authorities. They consistently supported his rival Botvinnik, and pretenders to the throne were not encouraged. Levenfish was a member of the older generation of masters, 22 years older than Botvinnik. He was the only strong Soviet master of his generation who was denied a stipend. This meant that he could only afford a poorly heated room in a run-down block of flats.
     Worse still, the government refused him permission to travel abroad and compete in tournaments such as AVRO 1938 (even though he was the reigning Soviet Champion). This further weakened his standing not to mention his continued development as a player. Other players born pre-revolution, such as Alekhine, Bogoljubov, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch, were all allowed to travel and even ended up living abroad. Deprived of the same opportunities, Levenfish played only within the confines of Soviet Russia and supplemented his income with a job as an engineer in the glass industry. This eventually resulted in a slow retirement from active play.
     Levenfish was awarded the title of International Grandmaster in 1950, the year the title was introduced officially. Those who knew Levenfish characterized him as a man of integrity and independence, who never complained about his difficult living conditions.
     Spassky encountered him in a Moscow subway, just days before his death. Levenfish, who had a wretched look, was clutching a handkerchief to his mouth and declared that he had just had six teeth extracted. Smyslov recounts the time that Levenfish visited him, towards the end of his life, armed with a huge pile of papers. It turned out to be a manuscript detailing his lifetime work on rook endgames. He asked Smyslov to check for errors, and some minor corrections later, the book was published bearing both names, under the title of The Theory Of Rook Endings.
     In his time, Levenfish also wrote books for beginners and edited a collaborative effort on chess openings, titled Modern Openings. His posthumously published autobiography, Izbrannye Partii I Vospominanya (1967), contained 79 annotated games. Levenfish defeated virtually all of the top Russian and Soviet players from the 1910s to the early 1950s, and beat world champions Alexander Alekhine and Emanuel Lasker as well.
     Levenfish was a prominent theorist in openings and in the middlegame he had not only an excellent grasp of tactics, but also an excellent command of positional play. His chief strongpoint however was tactics. A resourceful tactician, he planned complex and well-disguised combinations and set ingenious traps. Enjoy his smashing attack against Yudovich played in the 8th USSR Championship.

Alexander Kotov

  

         Alexander Alexandrovich Kotov (12 August 1913 – 8 January 1981) was a Soviet Grandmaster. He was Soviet champion, a two-time world title Candidate, and an author. Kotov served in high posts in the Soviet Chess Federation and most of his books were written during the period of Cold War between the US and the USSR. As result, his works tended to be critical of American players. Russian players were described in a favorable light. Kotov's books also included frequent praise for the Soviet system in general. For example, the 1958 book The Soviet School of Chess (which he co-wrote with Mikhail Yudovich) stated that "The rise of the Soviet school to the summit of world chess is a logical result of socialist cultural development." At the time, statements such as this were sufficiently controversial that Western publishers felt compelled to include disclaimers in versions of his books that were translated for distribution to English-speaking countries. Dover Publications, Inc.'s 1961 paperback version of The Soviet School of Chess was distributed primarily to Western countries and included an introduction that stated "...literature of this type, though helpful in our ultimate understanding of the game, is very often riddled with distortion. The publishers of this Dover edition are very much concerned that readers be aware of the propaganda techniques employed, even in the history of chess, by the Soviet Union."
     All this notwithstanding Kotov's books were insightful and were written in a congenial style. He often made his points by citing first-hand stories of incidents involving famous grandmasters, most of whom he knew personally.
     Kotov’s father, Alexander Yegorovich Kotov, was a mechanic in an arms factory and had ten children. Only four, of which Kotov was the youngest, survived into adulthood. Kotov played checkers with his father and learned chess at school from schoolmates. He was champion of Tula in 1929 and 1930 and left Tula for Moscow in 1934.
     Kotov was a good student in math and physics and from1930-34 he attended university, studying mechanical engineering. From 1935 he was employed in an aircraft construction bureau in Moscow.
     During that period his chess skill advanced to “first- category” or approximately 1800 ~ 2000 Elo and he won a number of first-category tournaments and played with success in two Moscow championships. However, Kotov was unsatisfied with his play, especially his inability to analyze variations. Once he identified the problem, he looked for a solution. He turned to studying chess books and often tried to pick the brain of masters but failed to gain any practical advice. Eventually he developed a method, which he later published, where he identified candidate moves and a tree of analysis.
     As a result of his study he made substantial progress and was awarded the title of Soviet Master for his performance in the 1938 Trade Union Tournament. Less than a year after attaining the master title, Kotov was playing Grandmaster level chess. In the 11th USSR championship he finished second to Botvinnik and as a result, Soviet authorities awarded him the Grandmaster title. 
     Shortly after this, WW2 erupted and Kotov worked as an engineer in an armaments factory in Tula. Despite the war, the Soviets held championships in 1940, ‘44, and ’45 and Kotov finished second in all three events. In 1948 at the 16th USSR championships, Kotov shared first with Bronstein and also in 1948 he placed fourth at the Interzonal, Saltsjobaden, Sweden. EDIT: As pointed out by a reader on Chessgames.com Kotov actually tied for places 4th-6th (with Bondarevsky and Konstaninolpolsky) in the 1945 Championship.  Source: Russian Chess
     In 1950, at the Candidates in Budapest, Hungary, Kotov took fifth. The 1952 Interzonal, in Stockholm, Sweden, was Kotov’s highpoint. With Kotov in first, Taimanov, Petrosian, Geller, Averbakh, Stahlberg, Szabo, Gligoric, Unzicker, and Eliskases, were 2nd through 10th.
     Kotov is probably best known for his book, Think Like a Grandmaster. First published in the Soviet Union in 1970, the work’s immediate success brought about its rapid translation into various European languages. By the early 1960’s, Kotov was not very active in tournament play but he still managed to share first at the 1962 Hastings tournament with Gligoric. The 1977 Lord John Cup, in England, was his last major tournament.
     It has been alleged that Kotov was a member of the KGB. There is little question that Kotov was a staunch communist and enjoyed the support and confidence of the Soviet authorities, but there has never been any hard evidence that he was a KGB member.
     The following game is from Round 23 of the 1953 Candidate’s Tournament. It was significant because Smyslov and Reshevsky were tied for first with 13.5 points and in this round Smyslov had a bye, so it was expected Reshevsky would try very hard to win. Kotov found an interesting theoretical novelty against Reshevsky’s Q-Indian and for a long time Reshevsky was under a lot of pressure but finally equalized. When Kotov offered him a draw, Reshevsky decided to play on and chose a risky N ending and ended up losing.

An Old Film Clip from the 1948 World Championship

What Famous Player are You Most Like?

Chessplayer Personality Selector

     Have you ever wondered what famous chess player you most resemble? Of course you have. So here’s a test that will tell you. My result says I am most like Botvinnik and that was no surprise!
     One of the first chess books I ever had and one of two that I can honestly say got thoroughly read was Botvinnik’s 100 Selected Games. The second was like it, Reshevsky’s Best Games; I wore the cover off both books; they were the only ones that ever got that much use. 

 

Botvinnik 100%

Deep Blue 89%

Morphy 89%

Steinitz 81%

Spassky 77%

Karpov 66%

Kramnik 66%

Kasparov 58%

Short 54%

Nimzovich 43%

Capablanca 39%

Alekhine 39%

Tahl 27%

Fischer 27%

Lasker 24%

Anand 0%

Musings...

     It’s dark and bitterly cold here, -15 Fahrenheit (-26 Celsius). It’s so cold I can hear the downspouts, the garage door and the gutters on the house popping and cracking in the cold; I feel like hibernating! In fact, at the present time Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the U.S., is warmer than we are!
     I’ve been watching a Bill Gaither CD and doing a little reading and came across an article on the Dunning–Kruger effect which seems to affect a lot of chessplayers.
     The Dunning–Kruger effect is a pattern of deviation in judgment whereby inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion; it causes unskilled individuals to suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than it is. This bias is attributed to the inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Reminds of the time US Senior Master Dr. Eliot Hearst wrote that the definition of a master is everybody’s secret appraisal of his own ability.
     David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University concluded that for a given skill, incompetent people will:

tend to overestimate their own level of skill

fail to recognize genuine skill in others

fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy

     The D-K effect causes unskilled people to make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the ability to recognize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is. Those who label themselves as experts, more often than not, aren’t. Conversely, those who genuinely know their stuff are considerably modest when compared to those who have a fraction of their experience and knowledge.
     It’s easier to brag about how good you are than to actually be good. A lot of D-K people blog.

Hastings 50 Years Ago

     The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual congress which takes place in Hastings, England, at the end of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the knock out format; in 2005/06 they began using the Swiss system. Along with the main event there was a challengers section with the winner earning an invitation in the following year's Premier.
     Every World Champion before Garry Kasparov except Bobby Fischer played at Hastings but the only champions to play while currently holding the title were Lasker in 1895 and Alekhine in 1933. Vera Menchik (Czechoslovakia), who was then the Women's World Champion, was the first woman to play in the Premier section and in 1963/4 Nona Gaprindashvili (USSR) won the Challengers section when she also was Women's World Champion, earning a spot in the next years Premier. In the 1964/5 Premier she scored 5/9 to place fifth, beating all of the British masters.
     The 39th Hastings Christmas Chess Festival was held at the end of 1963. Ten grandmasters and masters competed in a round robin format at the premier event. The notable participants of this edition were 5-time Hastings winner Svetozar Gligoric and former world champion Mikhail Tahl. Tahl took clear first, finishing undefeated. Gligoric was a close second.
     The final standings and crosstable:
1 Tal * = = = 1 1 1 1 = 1 7.0
2 Gligoric = * = = 1 1 1 = = 1 6.5
3 Lengyel = = * 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 6.0
4 Khasin = = 0 * = = 1 1 1 1 6.0
5 Littlewood, N 0 0 1 = * 1 0 1 1 1 5.5
6 Brinck-Claussen 0 0 1 = 0 * = = 1 1 4.5
7 Littlewood, J 0 0 0 0 1 = * 0 1 1 3.5
8 Hindle 0 = 0 0 0 = 1 * = 0 2.5
9 Bely = = 0 0 0 0 0 = * = 2
10 Franklin 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 = * 1.5

Levente Lengyel (born June 13, 1933) is a Hungarian chess player, who gained the Grandmaster title in 1964
Abram Khasin (b. 1923) is a Soviet IM, Correspondence Grandmaster and Trainer.
Norman Littlewood (b. 1933-1989) was one of four chess-playing Sheffield-born brothers
Bjorn Brinck-Claussen (b. 1942) is a Danish IM.
John Littlewood (1931 –2009) was for many years a leading British player and won the English title of national senior champion in 2006. His brother was Norman and his son Paul, an International Master, won the British Chess Championship in 1981.
Owen Hindle (b. 1940) is an English FM and was considered to be a very dangerous attacking player.
Miklos Bely (1913 – 1970) was a Hungarian IM and medical doctor.
Michael J. Franklin (b. 1931) is an English FM.

Here is a short encounter between Khasin and Hindle. To be honest, it’s kind of hard to see how white can win so quickly from the position after 22…Kh8.

The Hastings Chess Congress is Underway!

The Hasting International Chess Congress is currently underway and you can visit the official website and see all the games live. Lots of photos, commentary, etc.  VISIT

Chess and Religion

     Bet you didn’t know chessplayers had a patron saint, did you? In the 16th century, St. Teresa of Avila was proclaimed patroness of chessplayers by church authorities in Spain.
     At one time or another, chess was forbidden by Muslims, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Jews, the Puritans, and most recently by the Taliban. Chess (shatranj) was a legal issue after Mohammad died in 642 and in 655 his son-in-law disapproved of the game for his sect of Muslims because he believed the carved figures of the chess pieces were graven images. In 780, the caliph al-Mahdi wrote to Mecca religious leaders to give up chess played with dice. In 1005, chess was banned in Egypt and all the chess sets and pieces were ordered to be burned.
     In 1061, Cardinal Damiani (1007-1072) forbade the clergy to play chess and wrote to the Pope complaining that chess was being played by some clergy and lay people. In 1093, chess was condemned and forbidden by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
     In 1125, the Eastern Orthodox monk John Zonares issued a directive banning chess as debauchery and 1128, St. Bernard of Clairvaux forbade the Knights Templar from playing chess. In 1195, rabbi Maimonides included chess among the forbidden games. 
     In 1240, the Worcester Synod of England forbade chess to the clergy and the monastic orders and in 1254, King Louis IX issued a religious edict forbidding chess as a useless and boring game. Then in 1260, King Henry III instructed the clergy to leave chess alone. In 1291, the Archbishop of Cantebury threatened to put the prior and canons on a diet of bread and water unless they desisted from playing chess and priests were forbidden to play chess up to 1299.
     In 1310, chess was forbidden to the clergy in Germany in a decree from the Council of Trier. in 1329, chess was banned by the clergy in the Synod of Wurzburg in Germany and in 1375, King Charles V of France, under the influence of the church, prohibited chess.
     By 1500 Jews were allowed to play chess on the Sabbath. In 1551 the leading clerics of Russia compiled rules which included the prohibition of chess. Clergymen in Russia associated chess with witchcraft and heresy in the late 16th century. The Puritans greatly discouraged chess, but that should be no surprise; they discouraged just about everything.
     In 1981, chess was forbidden in Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini but he had a change of heart in 1988 and decided to allow it. Chess was forbidden by the Taliban in Afghanistan for 15 years.
     Some Popes played chess: Pope Leo XIII (Gioacchino Pecci), Pope Gregory VI, Pope Innocent III, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, and Ope Leo X.
     Many years ago I played in a week tournament and a certain pastor asked me how I did. I replied that I did OK on Saturday, winning all three games, but Sunday was a disaster; I was tired and lost both games. His reply was, “I think it was probably because you were playing on Sunday.” He thought chess was a waste of time to begin with and playing on Sunday was definitely a no-no.
     An article titled The Symbolism of Chess by Titus Burckhardt appeared in Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 3, No. 2. (Spring 1969). It seems rather absurd to me, but I’ll give the link to it anyway. HERE
     Other: The Best Ever Sports Talk Blog, Religious Chess Sets (no kidding!) In 1859 a fellow named Edmond Neville authored a book titled The Chess Players, Sermon to Young Men

Donald Mugridge

     Donald Henry Mugridge was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 23, 1905. He was a former Harvard and District of Columbia Chess Champion. He won the Massachusetts Championship in 1932.
     For 30 years Mugridge was a specialist in American History in the General Reference and Bibliography Division of the Library of Congress and was a leading authority in his specialty and a widely known to scholars throughout the country.  Mugridge was the author of a number of articles and book reviews on historical journals, an active member of the American Historical Association, the American Studies Association, the Columbia Historical Society and the Society of American Archivists.
     He was educated in the Chicago public schools and received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Southern California and at the Harvard Graduate School where he continued his graduate work in history.
     Before joining the Library of Congress in 1933, Mugridge served as a teaching fellow at the University of Southern California and as a research assistant to historian Samuel Eliot Morison, working on the Tercentennial History of Harvard University; he was also employed for a short time to do editorial work for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts and in 1942 he was out in charge of the Study Room Reference Service. After 1944 he served under several titles as Specialist in American History, except for a few months in 1946, when he was acting Assistant Chief of the General Reference and Bibliography Division, and for a brief period in 1949-50, when he was on leave from the Library to edit the Adams-Jefferson correspondence for the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Virginia. Mugridge edited and contributed extensively to the monumental Guide to the Study if the United States of America, an annotated bibliography of representative books reflecting the development of American life and thought, which was published by the Library of Congress in 1960. 
     In recognition of the significant contribution to scholarship represented by his work on the Guide, the Library honored him in April of 1961 with a Superior Service Award. At the time of his death, he was directing the compilation of a supplement to the Guide. 
     Other noteworthy bibliographies edited or compiled by him included those on Christopher Columbus, American battle art authors published in America from 1892 to 1950 and the American Civil War.
     He died in his home on Tuesday, November 3, 1964 of a coronary thrombosis. He left no immediate survivors.
     On the fourth USCF rating list published in December 1951, Mugridge was rated at 2359. An October 1937 article on the mannerisms of master Chess Review had this to say about Mugridge: "Mugridge is a head-holder and chin-nurser par excellence. Being of a more restful nature than Winter, he does not seek to find out whether his head can be screwed on or off."

Walter B. Suesman

     I was unable to find much information on this interesting master from a bygone era. Suesman was born in 1918 and passed away in 1985.  He played in major U.S. Tournaments in the late 1930's and throughout the 1940's and 50's and several of his games were quoted in books and books on opening theory. He was a regular at the old Providence Chess Club in Providence, Rhode Island, and wrote a chess column for the Providence Journal for several decades.  Suesman also authored a book, Chess Games and Chess Problems: a collection of forty games and fifty problems.
     In addition to chess, he built beautiful scale model wooden replicas of steamships, yachts and sailing sloops. These wooden models were built to such exactitude that he even took bits of wooden match boxes to fabricate authentic looking planking on the ships' decks. Most of his ship models were donated to the Providence Public library.
     In 1938 the second U.S. Championship featured Fine and Reshevsky both of whom by this time were seasoned international players. Also playing was Isaac Kashdan, his European exploits were in the past, but he had a virtual monopoly on America's strong players. In 1938 Kashdan won the Manhattan Chess Club tournament and had crushed Albert Simonson 4-0 in a match. Thus, Fine, Reshevsky and Kashdan were the favorites of the 1938 U.S. championship. Organizers rented the Radio City Auditorium in the new Rockefeller Center complex of midtown Manhattan. Spectators included Emanuel Lasker, 65-year-old John Barry, 76-year-old Albert Hodges and Frank Marshall, newsreel cameramen, reporters a lot of chess fans. The finalists were 10 seeded players plus seven, including 19-year-old Suesman, who qualified from preliminary events that had been plagued with several withdrawals and forfeited games. Besides Suesman, Fred Reinfeld, Anthony Santasiere, and 20-year-old George Shainswit were newcomers in the field.
     The tournament was won by Reshevsky a half point ahead of Fine; Suesman did not do well, finishing in last (17th) place with a score of +1 -13 =2. However, he must have derived some satisfaction from his lone win which came against the fifth place finisher, Isaac Kashdan.
     Suesman’s also competed in the 6th U.S. Championship in 1946. Reshevsky dominated this event with 14 wins, 4 draws and no loses. He was followed by Kashdan with 13.5-4.5 and Anthony Santasiere with 13-5. Suesman tied for places 13-16 with Weaver Adams, Attillio DiCamillo and Sid Rothman, scoring +4 -9 =5.  Suesman had the satisfaction of drawing with Arnold Denker and defeating Al Horowitz, both of whom tied for places 5-6.
     In the following game against Stark, Suesman’s play between moves 23 to 25 was brilliant; he played the only moves that kept his advantage. Unfortunately, the play of both sides deteriorated from that point, possibly because of time pressure, and came to an abrupt end when Stark overlooked a one mover.

The Best Free Engines

According to CCRL’s 40/40 rating list the following engines are the highest rated free and open source engines. Their results against Houdini 3, are listed here. Not all of them played against Houdini 4, so H3 is the engine I chose for the benchmark:

3-Stockfish 4 64-bit 4CPU (vs. Houdini 3 = +14 -13 =53)
4-Critter 1.6a 64-bit CPU (vs. Houdini 3 = +16 -47 =92)
6-Bouquet 1.5 64-bit 4CPU (vs. Houdini 3= +3 -16 =15)
7-Gull 2.3 64-bit 4CPU (vs. Houdini 3 = +2 -18 =37)
8-Strelka 5.5 64-bit (vs. Houdini 3 = +1 -19 =19)
9-Hannibal 1.4b 64-bit 4CPU (vs. Houdini 3 = +1 -15 =14)
10-Protector 1.5.0 64-bit 4 CPU (vs. Houdini 3= +2 -18 =10)

Komodo 5 scores against various engines:
Houdini 3 = +11 -17 =48
Stockfish 4 64-bit 4CPU = +12 -16 =32
Critter 1.6a 64-bit CPU 3 = +8-2 =14
Bouquet 1.5 64-bit 4CPU = +11 -3 =16
Gull 2.3 64-bit 4CPU = +14 -1 =16
Strelka 5.5 64-bit = +0 -0 =0
Hannibal 1.4b 64-bit 4CPU +0 -0 =0
Protector 1.5.0 64-bit 4 CPU = +14 -0 =16

I think this shows that at slow time controls Stockfish 4 is the best engine you can get without spending any money. Used with Arena or SCID, there appears no reason for most of us to purchase any commercial programs.  You can also download tons of games to make your own database and various opening books are also available.

Engine Releases and Openings for Correspondence Play

StockfishDD (version 4 - 4 cores) Komodo 5 (single core)

Correspondence Openings
     Sometime back I downloaded the nearly 167,000 archived games from Lechenicher SchachServer then made a database containing 5951 games where both players were rated over 2300. I then made an opening book based on those games.
     What openings give the best results? White’s scored best with: 1.d4, 1.Nf3, 1.c4 and 1.e4 respectively.
     By far the most popular reply to 1.d4 was 1…Nf6, but the second most popular reply, 1…d5 was slightly better for Black. Other replies by Black did not have enough games to make the statistics significant.
     Against 1.Nf3 the best results for Black were obtained with 1…d5 while the best chances against the English saw Black playing 1…e5
     If White plays 1.e4 the scores were:

1…e5 (White scored 53.7%)

1…c5 (White scored 53.0%)

1…e6 (White scored 53.6%)

1…c6 (White scored 56.0%)

     In the Sicilian, the Sveshnikov variation was Black’s most popular and best choice and in case of 1.e4 e5, White got the best results with the Scotch. In the Ruy Lopez White does best to play the Exchange Variation, but if he does not, Black’s best line is the Zaitsev Variation (also called the Flohr–Zaitsev Variation) which was a Karpov favorite and remains one of the most important variations of the Ruy Lopez. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0–0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0–0 8.c3 d6 9.h3 Bb7

     Other Openings/Defenses:

Giuoco Piano (White scored 44.0%)

King’s Gambit (White scored 23.7%)

Caro Kann (White scored 54.9%)

Alekhine Defense (White scored 66.7%)

 

Nimzo-Indian (White scored 55.1%)

King’s Indian (White scored 58.2%)

Gruenfeld (White scored 58.6%)

QGA (White scored 54.7%)

QGD (White scored 57.6%)

     After 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Black’s best choice is 2…c6 where White scored 52.1% I was disappointed to find that my personal favorite, the Torre Attack, 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bg5, only appeared in three games and after 3…Ne4 all the games were drawn.
     When using any opening book or database it must be remembered that they are museums. They tell you what used to be good so it’s important to do an exhaustive engine analysis of your lines of choice to find improvements. I rarely do that because it’s too time consuming and have paid the price a few times by entering a line that was supposed to give me good chances only to have an opponent come up with an improvement.

Merry Christmas Everybody

at Disney World 2013