When Amateur Brilliancies Were Possible

     Back in the old days when the USCF had under way 10,000 members, there were less than 50 masters in the whole country and nobody ever dreamed there would be anything like chess engines that made millions of players armchair Grandmasters, a few of us living out in the vast American wilderness played postal chess. The USCF didn’t dabble in that form of the game; it was the domain of the Correspondence Chess League of America and Al Horowitz’ Chess Review, the Postal Chess Magazine. 
     There were books and pamphlets on openings, but almost everybody referred to Modern Chess Openings. Even Chess Life told you the page and column number of the opening when they published a game. 

     Over the board tournaments were scarce. For example, the May 1955 issue of Chess Life listed the following tournaments.  It should be mentioned that in 1955 a dollar was worth about 9-1/2 of them today! 

Hoboken, New Jersey. Entry fee $1.00. Prizes: Medal and other valuable prizes.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Entry fee $3.00. Cash and book prizes depending on entries. 
Spokane, Washington. Entry fee $3.00. First prize $25. 
Baltimore, Maryland. Entry fee $3.00 plus $3.00 deposit to be returned upon completion of all games. No prizes announced. 
Beloit, Wisconsin. Entry fee $4.00. No prizes mentioned. 
St. Paul, Minnesota. Entry fee $2.50. Trophy and cash. 
Hutchinson, Kansas. Write TD for details. 
Logansport, Indiana. $3.00 or $5.00 to be determined at players meeting. First place gets half the money. 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Entry fee $10.00 with $5.00 refunded upon completion of all games. First prize of $150.00. 
Phoenix, Arizona. Entry fee $5.00. No prizes announced. 
Dallas, Texas. Entry fee $10.00. First prize $75.00. 
Chicago, Illinois. Write for entry fee and details. $175.00 first prize. 
Davenport, Iowa. Entry fee $7.00. $100.00 first prize. 

     So, for many players postal play was a way to play some serious chess. In fact, Chess Review had a few over the board masters playing and three or four times I played opponents who had actually participated in some of the old U.S. Championships. Naturally I lost, but I got to play them. 
     The great thing about postal chess was that sometimes an unheralded amateur could pull off a real brilliancy. I, myself, pulled off a few of them...at least I thought so until chess engines made their appearance. 
     I especially recall one brilliant game involving a sacrifice on my part that topped my list of brilliancies. Playing over it with an early engine revealed that my move that merited two exclamation marks actually allowed my opponent a mate in one, but he didn’t see it! 

     In the following game Dr. Maxwell Sturm plays some inspired chess. Sturm was a British consul who lived in Trinidad. His opponent was Lee T. Magee (April 11, 1928 – April 20, 2015, 87 years old) who was Nebraska State Champion in 1950, 1951, 1953 and 1955 and Omaha city champion in 1947, 1953, 1955 and 1956. On the 1955 USCF rating list he was rated 2160. While that rating might not seem very impressive today, at the time were were only 41 players in the country that had a Master rating which was then over 2300. A rating of 2100 - 2299 was classified as Expert. 

  The game was played in a Gambit Tournament. I played in a few and they were great fun. Sections were made up of 7 players with two games against each opponent. Players were supplied with the opening moves to 20 or so gambits and white got to choose which one was played in each game. It’s unfortunate that engines have killed off playing chess this way and deprived amateurs of a moment of, if not glory, a great deal of personal satisfaction. 

     Of course even in those days most “real” players (i.e. OTB players) didn’t think much of postal chess. In one, for me, eye opening incident was when I had a game published in Chess Review and annotated by the legendary John W. Collins. Only one person out of about 20 at the chess club in the big city of Toledo, Ohio saw it. All he said was, “Saw your game.” 
     In one incident a TD announced free entry to titled players, so when a titled correspondence player showed up the TD refused him the free entry...correspondence titles didn’t count. In a way the TD was right because they are two different animals. If a titled OTB player wanted to play in a postal tournament they would have had to start at Class A (1800) and work their way up, so I guess it was fair. 

Play Online Chess

[Event "CCLA Gambit Tournament"]
[Site "Correspondence"]
[Date "1950.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Dr. Maxwell Sturm"]
[Black "Lee T. Magee"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 {This is black's most
popular retreat. It gets out of the way of white's center Ps, and pins the
c3-P if white plays 6.d4, but it has the disadvantage of taking the a5-square
away from the N. Black usually has to retreat the B to b6 to allow ...Na5,
which is particularly strong when white opts for the Bc4, Qb3 approach. } 6.
d4 exd4 7. O-O Bb6 {Taking on c3 is not to be recommended because after 8.Qb3
white has strong pressure on f7 and with his B on a5 black can't play ...Na5.
} 8. cxd4 d6 9. Nc3 Na5 10. Bg5 {Black usually replies with 10...f6 which
weakens his K-side, but in practice he often manages to equalize. If black
plays 10...Ne7 white should avoid the temptation to sacrifice on f7 with
11.Bxf7+ because with correct play black can survive. It's never a good idea
to play a bad move and just hope your opponent won't find the best defense.
If black plays 10...Ne7 the best reply is 11.Nd5 which forces black to play
...f6 anyway. } 10... Qd7 {Blocking the B is not exactly bad, but it is
questionable. Sooner or later it's going to cost black another tempo. } 11.
Bb5 c6 12. e5 {I have christened this line the Rubicon Variation, said Dr.
Sturm. The idea is that the B on b5 is sacrificed to open the e-file, create
a passed P and allow white to use his lead in development to launch an attack.
(Sturm) In fact though all it does is lose a piece. Simply 12.Bd3 would have
left white a slight edge. } 12... cxb5 13. exd6 f6 {Dr. Sturm thought this may
be the best move, but adds that it is horribly cramping...it takes away f6
from the N and leaves his R locked in. Black could safely play 13...Nf6
because after 14.Re1+ Kf8 15 and in the long run is still a piece down..Bxf6
gxf6 black;s K-side it wrecked, but analysis will show that white really has
no satisfactory way to take advantage of it } 14. Re1+ Kf7 {14...Kf8 was a
little better...it threatens to take on g5 because white does not have the N
fork on the Q and K with Ne5+ available. White would then have to retreat the
B losing more time. } 15. Qe2 {Black should now play 15...Qe6 as white can
hardly afford to trade Qs. Black would then be able to get his B into play.
} 15... Qd8 16. Qxb5 {Better was 16.Nxb5, but even after this white has now
very nearly equalized. } 16... Nc6 17. Qd5+ {White could have seized the
advantage with 17.Qc4+ with would have allowed him to follow up with 18.d5. }
17... Kf8 18. Bf4 Bd7 19. Nb5 Rc8 {This loses. 19...Nb4 eliminates the
dangerous N after 20.Qc4 Nc2! 21.Qxc2 Bxb5. The chances would then be equal.
} 20. Nc7 g5 {After this move white is going to end up with a Q+2Ps vs R+2Ns+B
which normally should be sufficient compensation, but here his pieces are just
too uncoordinated to allow adequate defense. } 21. Nxg5 {Brilliant! } 21...
fxg5 22. Bxg5 Bxc7 23. Bxd8 {Nothing is more natural than to want to regain
the Q, but in doing so black is given new life. The correct move is 23.Re3
threatening a mating attack with Rf3+ If black prevents this with 23...Bg4
THEN white can play 24.Bxd8 Bxd8 25.d7 Rc7 and 26.Re8+ and black is lost
because he is going to lose material. } 23... Bxd8 {With the black B guarding
e8 the above line is no longer possible and black has sufficient resources to
defend his K. } 24. Re7 {White must throw more fuel on the fire because if
24.Qf3+ then simply 24...Nf3. } 24... Bxe7 25. dxe7+ Kxe7 26. Re1+ Kd8 27.
Qg5+ Nce7 {Wrong N! Now black is in effect playing without his N on g8 and R
on h8. With 27...Nge7 he could have gotten both pieces into play. } 28. d5
Rc5 {Yet another slip. With 28...h5 he could have gotten his R into play via
h7 or h6. White would still have been better but would have his work cut out
in proving he has enough of an advantage to win. } 29. Qe5 {Excellent! In
fact the only move. The tempting 29.Qg7 just won't cut it. After 29...Ng6
30.d5 Rf5 black has defensive resources and the game is up for grabs.} 29...
Ng6 30. Qb8+ Rc8 31. Qxa7 Rc2 {Now white could win a R through a series of
checks beginning with 32.Qa5+ Kc8 33.Qa8+ Kc7 34.d6+ Kxd6 35.Qb8+ Rc7 36.Rd1+
Ke6 37.Qxc7 but it doesn't matter because his next move is both simple and
enough to win. } 32. Qxb7 Nh6 {This allows a mate in 16 moves, but it is a
moot point.} 33. Qb6+ Kc8 34. Rb1 Bb5 35. Qxb5 Kc7 36. Qb6+ Kd7 {White has a
mate in 12 moves. } 37. Qe6+ {Dr. Sturm's concept at move 21 finally proves
justified. } 1-0

Forward Chess

I received an email from a site called Forward Chess describing their product...an interactive Chess e-book reader for mobile (iOS and Android) and desktop (Windows and Mac). You can purchase e-books from leading publishers, play through the moves and try out your own lines as well as analyze moves with Stockfish. There are currently over 300 titles available. They are also on Facebook. I have no financial interest in the site and am publishing this as a public service announcement.

Stockfish 10 Contempt Settings

     I am not an engine guru, but after using Stockfish 10 for a while I have noticed some strange behavior in its evaluation function that has to do with its contempt setting. 
    The contempt setting controls how readily the engine will play for a draw. The higher the value the stronger the effect on the engine and the more it will try to avoid a draw even if it means playing something other than the optimal move. If the engine has high contempt setting it might exhibit a more attacking style. 
     The default contempt setting for Stockfish 8 was zero, Stockfish 9 was 20 and for Stockfish 10 it is 24. Programmers did this because in some computer tournaments Stockfish was playing too many draws and by raising the contempt setting, the engine was able to score more points against weaker engines without losing too much objective strength against the stronger engines. This idea may sometimes be seen in games between human players when a player tries to keep the tension in a position which creates more scope for his weaker opponent to make a mistake. 
     But, what if you are playing in engine assisted tournaments against other Stockfish users? Might not the higher settings result in losing more games by trying to avoid the draw because the engine is not recommending the absolute best move? 
     If you are looking for the absolute best move in a given position, it might not be the engine's first choice. According to Russell Sherwood of the Welsh Chess Federation, "General opinion for CC has been that contempt settings should be set to zero to get a more accurate assessment of the position, however, there are different views on this." Mr. Sherwood has written some interesting articles on correspondence chess and the use of engines on the Welsh website. 
     I am not exactly sure how the contempt setting works. On one site I read that when the engine starts analyzing from a position it gives a “bonus” in the form of the contempt setting to whichever side is on the move. The result that the evaluation keeps bouncing back and forth and, according to the poster, the transposition table is filled with conflicting evaluation scores. 
     Another person wrote that was incorrect. According to him, the engine searches and returns its best move and the expected reply (known as the ponder move) so the engine is always searching from the same side to move.
     Whatever is going on, when analyzing with Stockfish 10 I have noticed what one person called “a strange yo-yo-effect especially at the beginning of the game” (also referred to as the “roller coaster effect”) that results in wild fluctuations in the evaluation every time a move is actually made on the board. His explanation was, like previously mentioned, it is because the contempt factor is switched back and forth to whichever side has the move. 
     I don’t know who is correct, but take the following position. 

I used two cores with the hash table at 1168 and gave Stockfish 10 five minutes to evaluate the position. 
Contempt setting: 24 Evaluation: -1.71 
Contempt setting: 20 Evaluation: -1.42 
Contempt setting: 0 Evaluation: -1.27 

     Clearly the contempt setting changes the evaluation, the difference in this case by as much as almost a half a Pawn. For anybody that’s interested, there is an interesting discussion at Talkchess,com.

Alexander McDonnell, Slavery Apologist

     In the days before Steinitz became the first official world champion there were a number of unofficial world champions and the Irish player Alexander McDonnell (1798–1835) was one of the briefest. 
     The son of a surgeon, McDonnell was born in Belfast, trained as a merchant and worked for some time in the West Indies. In 1820 he settled in London, where he became the secretary of the Committee of West Indian Merchants, a lucrative post that made him a wealthy man and left him with plenty of time to indulge his passion for chess. 
     Politically McDonnell was a committed Whig. The Whigs were a political party in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and 1850s, they contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs opposed an absolute monarchy. They supported the Exclusion Bill which set out to disinherit James, Duke of York, who eventually became James II of England and VII of Scotland. 
     The Tories emerged in 1678 and between 1783 and 1830 and they established a hold on the government. They were conservative supporters of Charles II, who endorsed a strong monarchy as a counterbalance to the power of Parliament. 
     McDonnell’s father, also named Alexander, was a noted surgeon in Belfast. It was said that he attended the execution of Henry J. McCracken (August 1767 – July 1798) who was an Irish Republican and industrialist from Belfast and a founding member of the Society of the United Irishmen which made him a target of the authorities. The SUI was a radical or liberal political organization that evolved into a revolutionary organization that launched the Irish Rebellion of 1798 with the objective of ending British rule over Ireland and founding a sovereign, independent Irish republic. McCracken was hanged in Belfast at the age of 30 on July 17, 1798. 
     McDonnell’s uncle, Dr. James McDonnell, was the founder of the Belfast Fever Hospital, which exists today as the Royal Victoria Hospital. 
     McDonnell trained and worked as a merchant in the West Indies in the early part of the 19th Century. He supposedly arrived in the West Indies at the age of 17 and ended up in the colony of Demerara-Essequibo, now part of modern day Guyana where he dealt mainly with the export of sugar and coffee. 
     The year 1820 saw him returning to London to act on the behalf of the coffee and sugar merchants as secretary of the Committee of West Indian Merchants. In this role he represented the interests of the British colonists in the West Indies and liaised with persons of importance and members of Parliament.
     For those with a financial interest in the West Indies it was a crucial time because there was a growing abolitionist movement in Britain and the West Indies plantations were almost totally operated by slave labor. 
     In 1807 the British had outlawed slave trading and although the capture of slaves in West Africa had ceased, slavery itself remained legal. Those slaves and children born into slavery that were already in the possession of plantation owners remained their chattels. 
     In 1823 the Anti-slavery Society, which sought to abolish slavery completely, was founded in Britain and it was also the year Demerara became the focus of international attention after a slave revolt was ruthlessly put down by the local colonists. 
     Initially public sentiment favored the plantation owners, but when details of the conditions of the slaves was discovered, mostly due to an abolitionist preacher named John Smith, public sentiment began to shift. Charged with promoting discontent and dissatisfaction among the plantation slaves, Smith was convicted and sentenced to death but died of consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis) before they could hang him. 
     Smith’s death caused uproar in Britain that lead to over 200 petitions being delivered to Parliament. As a result of the furor, in Demerara over 20 slaves who had been part of the mostly peaceful uprising were executed and their bodies strung up a warning to the other slaves. 
     What did all this have to do with Alexander McDonnell? He strongly advocated the continuation of slavery and wrote a book entitled “Considerations on Negro Slavery with authentic reports illustrative of the actual conditions of the Negroes in Demerara.” 

     In the book he defend the conditions and practices of the planters. His book was mainly based on reports he received from plantation managers when they replied to a series of letters he had sent. 
     While he criticized the slave trade and the cruelty of kidnapping slaves from Africa, he defended the present conditions of slavery that existed in Demerara.
     He argued that the West Indian colonies were financially extremely important to the British Empire and this worth was based on slave labor. Therefore, if slavery was abolished it would drain the Empire financially. 
     He also argued that plantation owners had a right to their property and should not be denied a living and the end of slavery would lead to their loss of income. 
     It was also his contention that the slaves in Demerara could not be freed because they weren’t civilized and would slip into complete idleness. To help prove this point he compared the motivation that lead the diligent, hard working English farmers and merchants who were always striving for greater security and wealth to the irresponsible farmers of West Ireland who he claimed were lacking in initiative and strength of character. 
     McDonnell suffered from Bright's disease which is now known as acute or chronic nephritis. Symptoms included inflammation of serous membranes, hemorrhages, apoplexy, convulsions, blindness and coma. Bright's disease was treated with warm baths, blood-letting, squill (a coastal Mediterranean plant of the lily family), digitalis, mercury compounds, opium, diuretics, laxatives and dietary therapy, including abstinence from alcoholic drinks, cheese and red meat. 
     Some other famous people who reportedly died of Bright’s disease include legendary Old West lawman Bass Reeves, famed gunfighter Luke Short. Rowland H. Macy Sr. founder of the Macy department store chain, Richard W. Sears founder of Sears, Roebuck and Company, Alice Roosevelt first wife of Theodore Roosevelt, poet Emily Dickinson, Chester A. Arthur 21st President of the United States, Union Civil War General Francis Barlow, James S. Sherman Vice President of the United States, Booker T. Washington founder of Tuskegee University and Charles H. Spurgeon, legendary English preacher. 

Edward Winter has published a featured article on McDonnell HERE

The Man Behind The Turk

     Every chess player knows about Wolfgang von Kempelen’s (1734 - 1804) chess playing automaton hoax, The Turk, but he was famous for a lot more than that. 
     Von Kempelen was born in Pressburg, part of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Habsburg Empire. He studied law and philosophy in Pressburg and attended the Academy in Gyor, Vienna and Rome, but it was mathematics and physics also interested him. He spoke Hungarian, German, Latin, French, Italian some English and Romanian. 
     He held a number of government positions and constructed steam-engines, water pumps, a pontoon bridge, patented a steam turbine for mills and a typewriter for the blind Viennese pianist Maria Theresia von Paradis. He built a theater house in Buda (now Budapest) and the famous fountains at Schoenbrunn in Vienna. He was also a talented artist and etcher, wrote poems and epigrams and composed a German light opera, Andromeda and Perseus, performed in Vienna. 
     He married twice, first in 1757 and after his wife died suddenly in 1758 of an abdominal obstruction he married again in 1762. His second wife bore five children, two survived into adulthood. 
     Though he had a long and successful career as a civil servant, von Kempelen was most famous for his construction of The Turk, a chess-playing automaton presented to Maria Theresa of Austria in 1769. 


    von Kempelen also created a manually operated speaking machine. Although his machine received considerable publicity, it was not taken as seriously because of his deception involving The Turk. 
     His speaking machine was a legitimate device that used a bellows to supply air to a reed which excited a resonator which could be manipulated to produce voice-like sounds. 
     An improved version was built from von Kempelen's description by Sir Charles Wheatstone who is credited in Britain with the invention of the telegraph. 
     von Kempelen's manually operated speech synthesizer began development in 1769, the same year that he completed The Turk, but while The Turk only took him six months to complete, the speaking machine occupied the next twenty years of his life. 
     His first experiment with speech synthesis involved only rudimentary elements of the vocal tract necessary to produce speech-like sounds. A kitchen bellows, used to stoke fires in wood-burning stoves, was used as a set of lungs to supply the airflow and a reed from a bagpipe was used for the glottis (part of the larynx consisting of the vocal cords and the opening between them). The bell of a clarinet was used for the mouth. His model was able to produce simple vowel sounds only, though some additional articulation was possible by positioning one's hand at the bell opening to obstruct airflow. 
     Sounds made by consonants are classed as nasals, plosives and fricatives and his machine couldn’t make those sounds. The hardware for constructing the nasals, plosives and fricatives that most consonants require resulted in his abandoning the single-reed design for a multiple-reed approach in his second design. 
     The second design involved a console, similar to that of a musical organ of the period, in which the operator manned a set of keys, one for each letter. The bellows that fed air through various pipes with the appropriate shapes and obstructions needed to produce that letter. Although not all letters were represented, von Kempelen was able to produce most vowels and several consonants and was able to begin forming syllables and short words. There was a flaw in that the sounds were very uncharacteristic of human speech. That lead to a third approach. 
     It consisted of a bellows, a reed and a simulated mouth (this time made of India rubber, for better creation of vowel sounds via manipulation by hand) and included a throat to which a nasal cavity was attached complete with two nostrils. These improvements helped with making n, m, s and sh sounds. At one point there was an alternate mouth assembly consisting of a wooden box with a pair of hinged shutters that acted as lips. 
     Inside the box was a hinged, wooden, string operated flap that acted as a tongue. This was supposed to make b and d sounds, but he later removed them because without a proper tongue, the machine would never be able to produce sounds for t, k, d and g. 
     He later discovered that even with the mispronunciations he believed that people were more forgiving of the errors due to the frequency of the reed and vocal tract resonant length. 
     This third design, unlike those before it, was capable of speaking complete phrases in French, Italian and English. It could also speak in German, but required a greater skill level by the operator due to the more frequent use of consonants in the German language.
     The biggest limitation was the bellows. Even though they were six times the capacity of human lungs they ran out of air much faster than human lungs.
     This machine spoke in monotone, a problem he was never able to resolve. Shortly after the completion and exhibition of his Speaking Machine, in 1804, von Kempelen died, though not before publishing an extremely comprehensive journal of the past twenty years of his research in phonetics. 
     In 1837, Sir Charles Wheatstone created an improved replica of von Kempelen’s Speaking Machine and was able to further analyze and synthesize components of acoustic speech, giving rise to the second wave of scientific interest in phonetics. After viewing Wheatstone's version Alexander Graham Bell set out to construct his own speaking machine and his experiments and research ultimately led to the invention of the telephone in 1876. 
     At the time of his death in 1804, von Kempelenowned a country estate in Gomba near Pozsony, but died in his apartment in Alser, a suburb of Vienna.

IdeA Analysis With Aquarium

     Complex positions are the only way to play for a win is a quote from ICCF SIM Kostas Oreopoulos of Greece who is rated 2490. There is a site called LIPEAD, a non-profit Peruvian association affiliated with ICCF that represents ICCF in Latin America, that has a two part series by Oreopoulos in which he describes how to prepare and maintain an opening repertoire for correspondence chess using the Aquarium program. 
     The articles warn that it is an involved and difficult task and it assumes you have a fair working knowledge of Aquarium because it uses the program’s IdeA feature. PART 1  PART 2  ChessPub also an old discussion on using IdeA. 
     With Interactive Deep Analysis you start with a position called a root node and the program will keep exploring possibilities and build a tree from that position for as long as you want it to run. You can mark moves as good, bad, dubious, interesting, etc. The program won’t analyze the ones marked bad and will spend extra time on those marked as good or interesting. 
     According to the description of IdeA, instead of analyzing the same position forever, it behaves like a strong chess player analyzing a position. If you ever studied Kotov’s Think Like a Grandmaster, you no doubt remember his well known advice to identify candidate moves and methodically examine them to build an “analysis tree.” That’s how IDeA works. 
     I will throw this in about Kotov’ book. According to the late James R. Schroeder, this book, which caused a sensation when first published in the US by Kenneth Smith, was written because Kotov was weak with Ns, but he wasn’t aware of it and so created an artificial system which he hoped would avoid blunders. Schroeder claimed that because Kotov was weak when it came to playing with Ns he sometimes misjudged a position. 
     The purpose of IDeA is to dig deeply into a position and return as much information about it as possible. IDeA keeps its analysis in a tree structure which is unlimited in size and the user can browse at will, even while the analysis is in progress. And, you can stop the analysis and go back later and it will pick up where it left off. You can do neither of those things with the Infinite Analysis feature in other programs. 
     As I have mentioned in previous posts, I find Aquarium difficult to use and somewhat confusing; one has to read page after page in the manuals just to learn how to perform basic stuff. So, for me, I have done nothing more than tinker with IdeA because most of my correspondence chess has been played on LSS in rapid tournaments and line most players I don’t spend a lot of time selecting moves. Most people play whatever move the engine suggests after only a few minutes of analysis, but I do like to experiment a little bit. Because everybody is playing pretty fast and a lot of opponents have a ton of games going, you can experiment with unusual openings. 
     One such opening has been the Urusov Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d4) and my current score with it is +6 -0 =5 (including one opponent who lost twice against it)! The Urusov might be a good IdeA project, but if you read the articles you’ll see why I am reluctant to bother with doing it! Back in October, I published an article titled Is Opening Theory Wrong About the Urusov? I relied heavily on analysis by Michael Goeller found on his site HERE. 
     It’s interesting that in Victor Bologan's Black Weapons in the Open Games: How to Play for a Win if White Avoids the Ruy Lopez, he thinks it’s too dangerous for black to accept the gambit! In all 11 of my engine assisted games nobody declined it, so it would seem Bologan is correct. 
     According to my modified version of the opening book that came with Fritz, in OTB play black accepted the gambit with 3...exd4 over 75 percent of the time and the percentage results for white are +39 -33 =28. Accepting the gambit with 3...Nxe4 is even worse: white scored +69 -16 =15. 
     If black declines the gambit with 3...Nc6 white does even better, scoring percentage-wise +63 -18 =19. The Fritz opening book has zero lines in which black has a plus score. Of course, those statistics are no doubt skewed because the Urusov isn’t played by titled players so the results are not always related to the choice of opening. But, what the stats do show is that unless you’re playing titled players, the Urusov has a lot going for it! 
     Declining the gambit with 3...Nc6 is interesting because it leads to a line also discussed by Michael Goeller called the Perreux Variation of the Two Knights Defense. For a fascinating discussion of this line visit HERE and HERE.  I have also seen this opening classified as the Bishop’s Opening, Ponziaini Gambit. 
     After toying with Aquarium’s IdeA on the Urusov it appears that theoretically the best move for black is to accept the gambit, but accepting it, based on Bologan’s advice and my results in quick games, black might do better with the Perreux Variation despite the horrible results shown in the Fritz opening book. 
     I let Fritz do a deep position analysis on the Perreux Variation using both Stockfish 10 and Komodo 10. The deep position analysis feature in Fritz is good for getting deep and detailed analysis of a critical position, and is especially interesting for correspondence players. 
     DPA generates a detailed analysis tree for a given position and you can determine how deep and broad the tree should be and what moves should be included or excluded from the analysis. It’ similar to IdeA, but, as mentioned, once you stop the analysis, that’s it; you can go back and pick up where you left off. 
     The move most chosen by humans after 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 Nc6 is 4.Nf3 which according to the DPA with Komodo and Stockfish results in equality. Instead, they both prefer 4.d5. 
     Here is an interesting game by a couple of masters using the Bishop’s Opening Perreux Variation where white played 4.d5. In the game white managed to establish a winning position. But, as often happens, even with masters, white did not follow up correctly and lost. At move 23 he missed a chance to win a piece and soon reached a position where there was only one move that wins...26.Rxe4. 
     Had white’s tactical antenna been out he might have seen a signpost or two that there may be a winning tactic available. At move 23 black’s B had limited mobility. And, at move 26 the alignment of black’s N, B and Q coupled with the pin on the N was suggestive.  Refer to my post Tactics, the Pornography of Chess

Play Online Chess

[Event "EU-Cup 21st"]
[Site "Saint Vincent"]
[Date "2005.9.24"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Rocius, Marijonas"]
[Black "Hammer, Jon Ludvig"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 {If black takes either P it's the Urusov Gambit.}
3... Nc6 {Theoretically not the best, but it's the safest. } 4. d5 {4.Nf3 exd4
is the Two Knights Defense.} 4... Ne7 5. Nc3 Ng6 {White has several promising
choices:6.Bg5, 6.Nf3, 6.Nfe2 and if he is feeling especially aggressive 6.h4,
which is preferred by Stockfish. } 6. Be3 Bb4 7. f3 d6 8. Nge2 Nh5 {The
alternative plan is 8...Nd7 and 9...O-O hoping to play ...Nc5 and ...f5, but
it does not work out well for black} 9. Qd2 h6 10. O-O-O {White is
considerably better because of the awkward positioning of black's pieces. }
10... Qf6 {Castling was better.} 11. Bb5+ Ke7 12. Rhf1 a6 13. Bd3 b6 14. g3
Bc5 15. Kb1 {Even better was f4 although there is nothing wrong with this
waiting move.} 15... Nf8 {Black does not realize his Q is in danger. Better
was 15...Kf8 allowing the Q to retreat. In any case black's position is
unenviable. } 16. f4 Bg4 {Now white can play 17.fxe5 and then after 17...Qxe5
18.Bxf4 gxf4 he will be able to rip apart black's position with e5.} 17. Rf2
exf4 {This only helps white. For better or worse he had to try the defensive
17...Nd7. } 18. gxf4 Ng6 {This does not prevent the breakthough advance of
white's e-Pawn, but there was nothing for black to do. } 19. e5 {Of course
black can now win a P with 19...dxe5 20.fxe5 Qxe5 but if he does his K is left
wide open to attack. } 19... Qh4 20. Rdf1 f5 21. Bxc5 bxc5 22. exd6+ cxd6 23.
Nc1 {This turns out to be a mistake that allows black to equalize. White
could have taken advantage of the huddle of black pieces on the K-side to win
a piece beginning with 23.Ng1 and 24.h3. If black prevents 24.h3 trapping his
B with 23...Bxh3 then white draws the Q away with 24.Nxh3 followed by 25.Qe1+
and Qe6. } 23... Kf7 {Black slips up here. With 23...Bh3 he could have
rendered h3 toothless and his Q can retreat to f6 helping with the defense.
White should now play 24.h3 although it is not as effective as before because
after 24...Bxh3 25.Rh2 Qg3 black has managed to avoid the worst. } 24. Re1
{After this white's initiative has slipped away and black is able to take
advantage of it to gain the advantage. } 24... Nhxf4 25. Ne4 fxe4 {He should
have played 25...Rhd8. This move is suicide because it exposes his K. The
hint that there might be a tactical shot for white is in the pin on the N and
the alignment of three black pieces on the 4th rank. With 26.Rxe4 Nxf4
27.Qxf4+ Kg8 28.Rxe4 white wins easily as both the B and d-Pawn are
threatened. } 26. Bxe4 {There is only one road to victory here and that's
26.Rxe4! Both this and 26.Rxf4+ lead down the road to defeat. } 26... Kg8 27.
Ref1 Re8 28. Rxf4 Nxf4 29. Qxf4 Qf6 {Well played. With this black takes
advantage of the position of white' B and at the same time forces the exchange
of Qs leaving him the exchange and a P ahead.} 30. Qxf6 gxf6 31. Bg6 Rd8 32.
Nd3 Be2 33. Rxf6 {He may have held out longer with 33.Rf2. } 33... Kg7 34.
Re6 Bg4 35. Re4 h5 36. Nf4 Rdf8 {White has managed to trap his own B and after
the smoke clears he will be a piece and a couple of Ps down} 0-1

The Link Between Strategy And Tactics

     One of my favorite books is The Search for Chess Perfection by C.J.S. Purdy. To quote Jeremy Silman, “this book offers more key advice and instructional punch than a dozen other books sitting on a bookstore's shelf.” And, to quote myself, “Purdy had the unique ability to communicate chess in words without using reams of analysis .” 

     Besides being a collection of Purdy magazine articles the book also contains a biography and a collection of Purdy’ games. The games themselves aren’t of the high standard you would find in world championship caliber play, but they show how he applied his principles in his games, mistakes and all.

     According to Chessmetrics, Purdy’s highest ever assigned rating is a “mere” 2346 which ranked him way down at number 804 in the world. Purdy’s 139 over-the-board tournaments, 43 telegraphic matches and 14 other matches were mostly against players in his part of the world which is a long way from Europe. But, in telegraphic matches he had draws against Golombek and Tartakower. And, in the first World Correspondence Championship he scored wins over such notable correspondence players as John W. Collins, Olaf Barda, Gabriel Wood and Mario Napolitano. 

     One of the Purdy games in the book has some insights on the link between strategy and tactics buried in the annotations. That was his game against Bela Berger that was played in the 1964 New South Wales Championship. 

     Bela Berger (August, 1931 - December 2005) was a Hungarian-Australian master. After the failure of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Berger emigrated from to Australia. He won the New South Wales state title in 1957 and 1961 and second second in the 1959 Australian Championship behind Lajos Steiner. 

     Berger was one of Australia's representatives at the 1963 Pacific Zone 10 Championship in Jakarta. National champion John Purdy was chosen first, and a quadrangular tournament was held for the second spot. Berger and Karlis Ozols tied for first; then the selectors voted in favour of Berger 3-0. The Jakarta result was Berger's best of his career. He tied for first on 5.5/8, and then won the playoff against Indonesia's Arovah Bachtiar. (He won the playoff 2-1 after 3 games; a fourth game was won by Bachtiar, but it had no bearing on the outcome, as the tiebreak system used favored Berger). The win gave him the title of International Master, and qualified him for the Interzonal of the 1964-66 World Championship cycle. At the Interzonal he finished 23rd out of 24. 

     The following game is especially instructive because it demonstrates the link between strategy and tactics. In a nutshell, Purdy explained strategy as “choosing aims,” meaning an attempt at reaching a particular type of position. Purdy was always quick to point out that strategy is a reliable course of action to be undertaken only after tactics can be ruled out. 

     A Purdyism: All good players must be good tactically. All masters must be good both tactically and strategically. Someone who is good strategically and not tactically may understand the play of masters up to a point, but cannot possibly play well himself. 

     Purdy’s comments on the following game are representative of the type of instruction his annotations contained. When Berger played 6.O-O it was criticized by Purdy because while it gives white the option of building up the center with either d4 or playing the quieter Steinitz setup of d3, the move d4 is the only way white can hope to gain an advantage against black’s setup in this game, the Steinitz Defense Deferred. 

     At move 10 Purdy observed that the Ruy Lopez is worthless to white unless played with great precision, but if it is, it it perhaps the best of all openings. 

     He noted at move 13 that in practical play the question of how big or how small a theoretical advantage one side has is not important. If one side’s moves are easy and the other’s hard, that’s important. To have an easy game means to have a clearly good aim or strategy and no difficult tactical problem to solve in achieving it. 

     Black’s 20th move illustrates an interesting clash between strategy and tactics. A plan is only something to follow if nothing better turns up. Positionally it would have been better to have a N or R on f4 than a P, but because of the tactical point that the threat of ...fxe3 forces the N to move, black had the opportunity to break up white’s castled position and that was better than the mere superiority of piece placement. 

     Regarding 21...f3 he pointed out that to a master the reply 22.g3 would not work because however obscure, the knockout must be there. When Purdy played 25...Re6 it represented an important strategical decision. Should black try and attack the King which would be very speculative? White’s K was exposed and was going to stay that way, but on the other hand, there was only one open file. In order to guarantee the win, black must get control of it. 

     Both sides were walking a fine line, but Purdy’s position always seemed just a bit better and in the end he managed to squeeze out a win in this instructive game.

[Event "New South Wales Championship"] [Site "?"] [Date "1964.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Bela Berger"] [Black "C.J.S. Purdy"] [Result "0-1"] [PlyCount "37"] [EventDate "1964.??.??"] {Ruy Lopez} 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 d6 5. c3 Bd7 6. O-O Nge7 { According to
Purdy, after this the only good move for white is 7.d4. Berger is playing the
Steinitz attack against the Steinitz defense, but it is a poor choice as long
as black has the move ...f5 available.} 7. d3 Ng6 8. Re1 Be7 9. Nbd2 O-O {
} 10. Nf1 f5 {If white plays 11.Ne3 exf4 12. dxe4 Kh8 Purdy says black should have
good play. I assume he means black has equailzed. And, as often happens,
winning the b-Pawn with 11.Qb3+ is not a good idea. Purdy left it to his
readers to figure out why. I will do the same.} 11. exf5 Bxf5 12. Ne3 {Bd7
Nd5 Now it may look like pinning the N with 13...Bg4 is plausible, but
it's quite bad. After 14. Qb3! Kh8 (if 14...Bxf3 then 15.Nxe7+ and Nxg6+ and
17.gxf3 wins a piece.) 15.Qxb7 Bxf 16.gxf3 white's K-side is wrecked but white
wins a couple of Ps and black's pieces are too disorganized to launch any kind
of K-side attack.} Kh8 {Nxe7 Ncxe7} 13. Ng5 {Good. Berger wants to
place his N on e4 and at the same time this threatens the attacking Qh5.
Bxa4 Sacrificing a piece with16.Qh6 is met by 16...h6 and there is no
way to continue the attack. Qxa4 At this point the position is quite
even, but within a couple of moves Berger's position is critical. So where
does he go wrong?!} Qc8 {Be3 h6} 14. Ne4 {Nd5 Purdy obviously wants
to put a N on f5 and white cannot prevent this with g3. Here is where things
turn sour for white. Bad is 19.g3 Ndf4! (anyway) 20.gxf4 Qg4+ followed by
... exf4 and ...f3. It seems that his best move was 19.Qd1 as withdrawing the
Q to help defend his K-side. Ng3 Ndf4 Bxf4 He still should have
tried 20.Qd1. exf4 Nf1 f3 Can white defend with 22.g3? If he does
then if 22... Qh6 23.Ne3 and it's hard to see how black can continue his
attack. However, after 22.g3 Nf4! then 23...Nxd3 wins a P and white is still
badly tied up so black must eventually win. Qe4 fxg2 This allows
exchanges to a drawish position. Black could have kept up the pressure with
22...Rf6 and ...Nf5, but Purdy was relying on another trump ...he will gain
control of the e-file. Qxg6 gxf1=Q+ Rxf1 The material is equal and
with just heavy piece on the board it's hard to imagine that black can win.
} Rf6 {Qe4 Re6 Purdy pursues his strategy of controlling the e-file.
If the white Q stays on the long diagonal, black will offer a P or two as
bait. For example, now if 26.Qf3 Qe8! and white dare not play 27.Qxb7 because
after 27...Rb8 black invades on the second rank with decisive results.
} 15. Qg4 Qe8 16. Kh1 {Qc6+ f3 Rae8 Rf2 Qd5 d4 R8e7 Purdy was suffering
from time pressure here and was playing fast but reckoned he was winning and
all he had to do was hold out until the time control was reached. b3} b5 {/>} 17. Rg1 {Re3 Qf4} Qf7 {Qxf7 Rxf7 Rc1 Rfxf3 Rxf3 Rxf3} 18. c4 b4 {/> It's hard to calculate, but better was 38.Re1 Rf2 39. Re7. At least white has
an active R. However, careful calculation shows that black can, with correct
play, win the R and P ending.} 19. c5 { A few more moves were played until adjournment. Black has an easy win because he picks up a second P and white has no counterplay. 0-1} 0-1

Glory Fades Fast

     Alexei Shirov (born July 4, 1972) was originally from Riga, Latvia but has represented Spain for many years. A great tactician who has been compared to Mikhail Tal under whom he studied in his youth, he is also a strong endgame player. 
     Shirov considers himself a calculator and explained that the search for truth in sharp games with lots of tactics has always fascinated him. As a youngster he was fascinated by the games of Tal and, surprisingly, Alexander Koblentz (1916 – 1993), also from Riga, because their games were filled with tactics. 
     However, he always tried to be more than just a tactician and worked with the positional player Vladimir Bagirov in order develop his understanding of strategy. Working with Bagirov helped him gain an understanding of typical middlegame positions. It’s sounds strange, but Shirov himself believes that the endgame is his strongest area, perhaps as he wrote, because he is a player “with a very concrete style.” 
     Soviet literature has long been filled with the word “concrete”. When one thinks of concrete it’s usually the building material made from a mixture of broken stone or gravel, sand, cement and water that can be spread or poured into molds and that forms a mass resembling stone after it hardens. But, concrete also can mean existing in a material or physical form; not abstract. So, in that context when speaking of a concrete style or concrete analysis, they mean general principles and time honored maxims are thrown out the window in favor of specific threats that need to be calculated exactly and in an objective manner. 
     Shirov won the world under 16 championship in 1988 and finished second on tiebreaks to Ilya Gurevich in the world under 20 championship in 1990. After that he began winning many international tournaments and by the age of 22 his rating had shot up to 2750 which put him among the elite and by 1994 he was ranked number two in the world. 

     In 1998 he was number four in the world and was invited to play a ten-game match against Vladimir Kramnik to select a challenger for Kasparov. Shirov won, scoring +2 -0 =7, but the planned match with Kasparov never came off. You can read about the whole really messy situation in the Wikipedia article HERE.  
     Since that time Shirov has enjoyed a whole string of successes in international tournaments, but glory fades fast these days and his current rating of 2667 only places him number 74 in the world. 
     Shirov’s books on his best games are a good investment if you like tactics, opening analysis and an endgame play explained in what is more like an instructional book than a collection of computer generated variations. 
     The following game is from Fire On Board and was played against British GM Danny King in Gausdal, Norway in 1994. Shirov was not particularly successful, scoring 6-3 in the 45 player Swiss tournament because the two games per day schedule didn’t suit him. 
     He wrote that he wasn’t particularly proud of the game, but the final combination, which he saw all the way to the end, was one of the nicest of his career. Shirov said that when he showed the position after 31...Bc5 to several good players they took considerable time to find the winning move. But, when he showed it to Alexander Koblentz, he instantly saw all the correct moves. All this ought to be enough to make one want to play over the game! 
     Just a word about Shirov’ annotations that appeared in Fire On Board: in the introduction he admitted that he was too busy to “go deep inside every game in the book.” As a result some had deep annotations, some just brief notes. Because he wasn’t particularly proud of this game it didn’t receive a lot of attention except for the final combination. But, I think it’s a good game to play over with a board and pieces actually set up in order to train your eye for tactics...assuming you’re one of those people who are interested in actually studying chess. 

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[Event "Gausdal Troll Masters"]
[Site "Gausdal NOR"]
[Date "1990.1.??"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Alexey Shirov"]
[Black "Danny King"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
1. d4 e6 2. c4 Bb4+ 3. Nc3 c5 {At the time Shirov was playing the 4.f3 line,
but here he delays it a move. As he pointed out, when black plays ...c5 then
the f2-f3 line is even stronger than if black plays ...d5. } 4. d5 Nf6 5. f3
{Arriving at one of his favorite positions. } 5... exd5 {This gives white a
positional advantage. The critical lines are either 5...O-O or 5...b5. } 6.
cxd5 d6 7. e4 O-O 8. Nge2 a6 {In Sakaev-Vladimirov, Tomsk 2001 black tried
8...Nh5 and after 9.g4 Qh4+ and and then he sacrificed a piece with 10...f5
but didn't get enough compensation. Better would have been 10...Nf6 but white
would still be somewhat better. } 9. Ng3 b5 10. a4 bxa4 11. Qxa4 Nbd7 12. Be2
Nb6 13. Qc2 a5 14. O-O c4 {Objectively the best move is now 15.Be3 or 15.Bg5,
but here Shirov abandons his concrete style as mentioned in the introduction.
His reason...who can avoid the temptation to create a direct attack on the
enemy King? } 15. Nd1 Ba6 {Shirov did not comment on this move which protects
the c-Pawn, but after this white obtains a distinct advantage. Black might
have done better repositioning his N on f6 to c5 with 15...Nd7-c5. Note that
white couldn't take the P because after 16.Bxc4 Nxc4 17.Qxc4 Ba3 wins the
exchanges. } 16. Ne3 Nfd7 17. Nef5 g6 {Here, too, Shirov makes no comment, but
this looks to weaken black's K-side. There does not appear to be anything
wrong with 17...Nc5. White could then play his N to d5 and c6, but that does
not seem to offer him anything special. } 18. Nh6+ Kh8 {Better was 18...Kg7
because the K ends up there anyway. } 19. Be3 f6 20. f4 a4 21. Kh1 Qc7 {Shirov
mentions he was planning on meeting 21...Bc5 with 28.Bxc5 Nxc5 with 23. e5,
but that move doesn't look so great. However, after 23.f5 it looks like white
is going to get a promising attack. } 22. Rad1 Kg7 23. f5 Ne5 24. fxg6 hxg6
25. Ng4 Nxg4 26. Bxg4 c3 27. Rf3 {Sweet! Shirov makes the instructive comment
that he was just bringing his pieces into the danger area in the hopes that
there would be a mate somewhere. } 27... Nc4 28. Be6 Nxe3 29. Rxe3 Rh8 30.
Rf3 {Again, for whatever reason Shirov does not comment on this, but he missed
a humdinger of a move...30.e5!! If black captures on e4 either way then
31.Nf5+ leads to a winning attack. } 30... Qc4 31. bxc3 Bc5 {31...Qb3
doesn't work. 32.Qd2 and the threat is Rxf6+ and Qf4+ leading to mate. } 32.
e5 {Spotted by engines instantly, but missed by many strong players Shirov
showed this position to. Black's position is so bad that the best the engines
can come up with is the worthless 32...Rxh2+ } 32... dxe5 33. Nf5+ gxf5 34.
Rg3+ Kf8 35. Qxf5 Qf4 36. Qg6 Ra7 37. Rh3 Rxh3 38. Qg8+ Ke7 39. d6+ {After
this white has a mate in 3.} 1-0

Potpourri

     Just some odd thoughts. I spent some time poking around the USCF’s sales looking at chess programs, not the expensive professional programs, but the ones selling for under $100. 
     After replacing the hard drive on my laptop I managed to get the ancient Fritz 12 and Aquarium 2014 up and running off the old hard drive, but didn’t bother trying to get Chess Assistant running. I never liked CA because even the most mundane tasks, such as saving a new game, was too convoluted to bother with. Besides it used to crash occasionally. 
     After an hour or so fiddling with Aquarium I finally managed to figure out how to do all the basic stuff. I like the interface, but still prefer trusty old and easy to use Fritz 12. 
     I considered maybe upgrading to Fritz 16...the downloadable basic version sells for $80, but has a bunch of bells and whistles I am not interested in. Besides that, a number of reviewers were complaining that it was a bit buggy. In the final analysis Fritz 12 coupled with Stockfish is still the best. 
     Another bit of time was spent on New In Chess looking to see what was new in the world of chess books, specifically game collections and tournaments. As usual there were a ton of opening books...not interested. 
     Gata Kamsky - Chess Gamer, Volume 1: The Awakening 1989-1996, My Magic Years with Topalov by Romain Edouard, Learn from Michal Krasenkow and The Chelyabinsk Meteorite: Selected Games of Igor Kurnosov were some of the most recent publications. The price of these books run about $30 which is, in my opinion, rather steep otherwise I might be interested in having a couple of game collections by today’s GMs. 
     Who is Igor Kurnosov, I asked. It turns out he was a Russian GM who was youth champion, a member of the Russian national team that won the world student team championship and the Tomsk-400 team that finished first at the Russian championship. He won or placed highly at dozens of international tournaments. He was born May 30, 1985. On August 8, 2013 a report was published by the press service of the Russian Interior Ministry that at 2:45am a 20-year-old girl who had been driving for 14 months and driving a Ford Fiesta hit two pedestrians crossing the street in Chelyabins, Kurnosov’s hometown. He died on the spot. The other victim, a 42-year-old man, was taken to the hospital in serious condition. Kurnosov had just returned from an open tournament in Biel. 
     Who is going to pay over $1,100 for this chess set?! 

     There was a sign in the library around the corner advertising the meeting of the chess club on Wednesdays at 4pm. Nobody was there. Here in Butt Crack we haven’t had any chess players since the Fischer Boom when 20-30 players showed up at the Family YMCA on Friday nights. The Y has been closed for a couple of decades. Apparently chess players weren’t the only ones who quit showing up. 
     There’s a place called Ethiriel Photography Art Collections where you can browse and shop their chess art collection which is a pretty interesting.  Who wouldn't want this picture hanging in their living room?

 
     While browsing old issues of the West Virginia Chess Bulletin the following miniature from the state’s 1949 junior championship caught my attention. The championship was dominated by by a fellow named Charles Morgan who scored a perfect 5-0. The two players in this game tied for 3rd and 4th with scores of 3-2 in the 10-player event.

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[Event "West Virginia Junior Champ"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1949.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Andy Hoke"]
[Black "Jack Allison"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e5 Bg4 4. d4 Nd7 5. h3 Bh5 6. Be2 e6 7. Ng5 {Premature,
but it worked.} 7... Bxe2 8. Qxe2 Be7 9. Nxf7 {Of course this is incorrect,
but it leads to interesting play. White must take a few moves to develop
before he can do anything and so black has plenty of time to organize his
position. } 9... Kxf7 10. Be3 {More annoying is 10.Qf3+ Ke8 11.Qg4 but black
can play 11...Nf8! baiting a trap. If 12.Qxg7 Ng6 traps white's Q. } 10...
c5 11. c3 Rc8 12. g3 Bf8 {Black wants to play ...Ne7, but a better way of
making e7 accessible to the N is by 12...cxd4 and ...Bb4+ } 13. f4 Ne7 14.
Rf1 g6 15. g4 Qb6 {Black is still winning, but he doesn't realize there is
still some danger lurking in the position. Better was 15...Nc6 then if 16.f5
gxf5 17.gxf5 Qh4+ leaves white nothing. } 16. f5 Ke8 {Understandably black
does not want to open up the position. } 17. fxe6 Qxe6 18. Qb5 b6 {Much better
was 18...Nc6 breaking the pin and preventing white's next move. } 19. Rf6 Qg8
{Losing out of hand. The correct move might be just a tad hard to find.
19...a6 forces white to play 20.Rxe6 and after 20...axb5 black is better, but
not necessarily winning. } 20. e6 {At first glance this looks crushing, but
black can escape by, again, breaking the pin with 20...Nc6 21.exd7+ Kxd7 with
equal chances. White can win easily with first 20.Rd6 which maintains the pin
and then 21.e6. } 20... Kd8 {Black can weasel out of the whole mess with
20...Nc6, again breaking the pin. After 21.exd7+ white only has a very slight
advantage.} 21. Qxd7# 1-0

Make A Tiny Mistake And You’re Dead Meat

     At least you are when your opponent is one of history’s greatest players. In the following game Dr. Peter Trifunovic, who was famous for drawing games, makes a couple of minuscule mistakes in the opening and pays for them by losing the game. Against a lesser player they probably wouldn’t have mattered even if they had been recognized as such! 
     The game was played in Noordwijk, a town in the west of the Netherlands, in 1965. Besides its beaches, Noordwijk is also known for its bulb flower fields and is the location of the headquarters for the European Space Research and Technology Center, part of the European Space Agency. 
     There was a great tournament held in Noordwijk in back in1938. Games started at 5:30 pm to enable Euwe to finish his classes in Amsterdam before driving to the tournament. The results were: 1) Eliskases (7.5), 2) Keres (6.5), 3) Pirc (5.5), 4) Euwe (5), 5-6) Bogoljubow and Landau (4.5), 7) Thomas (4), 8-10) Schmidt, Spielmann and Tartakower (2.5). 
     In 1965, eight players participated in the annual Noteboom Memorial held in Noordwijk from February 21st to the 28th. The winner was Botvinnik who had lost his world championship to Petrosian in 1963 and had decided to no longer participate in the world championship cycle. 
     Although he was no longer participating in the world championship cycle, he had not retired from tournament play. In 1965 he played in two Moscow Trade Union Spartakiads, the Trud team competition in Moscow, the Moscow-Leningrad match and in the European Team Championship. In the European Team Championship he had a miserable result, scoring +2 -3 =3.   His combined score for those events was +12 -5 =6; he was hardly the invincible player he had been, but Noordwijk was a happy exception. 
     Botvinnik continued playing competitively until age 59 in 1970 when he decided to concentrate on the development of computer chess programs and assisting with the training of younger Soviet players. 
     From 1966 to 1970 he played in five team matches and six international tournaments which included first place finished at Hastings 1966-67 and tied for first in Beverwijk in 1969. During the period from 1966 to 1970 he scored +58 -11 =60. 
     Besides Botvinnik, a Soviet GM of a bygone era, 57-year old Salo Flohr, also participated in the 1965 event. As was his custom Flohr scored one win and drew the rest of his games. 
     Dr. Peter Trifunovic, the drawing GM from Yugoslavia with a colorless style turned in a score of +3 -1 =3 which was rather surprising considering his willingness to split the point. His sole loss was to Botvinnik. 
     Beginning with the 1958 Interzonal, Larsen had not been playing well and in the early 1960s he had diversified his style by switching over to risky and unusual openings which often threw his opponents off balance. As a result he recovered his form and furthered his development. So his finish was disappointing; he lost to the three players who finished above him. 
     GM Jan Hein Donner led the Dutch contingent that included the 20-year old Jacob Kort and veteran Carl Van den Berg. 
     The Bulgarian GM Milko Bobotsov (October 1931 - April 2000) is not well known. He was the first Bulgarian to attain the GM title which he was awarded in 1961. He was Bulgarian champion in 1958 and had mostly modest results in international tournaments. He was not a full-time player, working as a gymnastics instructor for several years before suffering a near-fatal stroke in 1972 that severely curtailed his activities. He was married to the Woman GM Antonia Ivanova who passed away in 2004.

1) Botvinnik 6.0-1.0 
2) Trifunovic 4.5-2.5 
3) Flohr 4.0-3.0 
4-5) Larsen and Van den Berg 3.5-3.5 
6-7) Bobotsov and Donner 3.0-4.0 
8) Kort 0.5-6.5 

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[Event "Noordwijk"]
[Site "Noordwijk NED"]
[Date "1965.2.22"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Petar Trifunovic"]
[Black "Mikhail Botvinnik"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
1. d4 g6 2. e4 Bg7 3. Nf3 d6 4. c3 {Botvinnik called this a cautious move and
explained it by the fact that Trifunovic was well placed in the tournament and
so had no objection to a draw. } 4... Nf6 5. Nbd2 O-O 6. Bc4 Nc6 7. O-O e5 8.
dxe5 dxe5 {Botvinnik explained that capturing with the N was the simplest, but
he didn't want a draw and so it was too dangerous...meaning it was too drawish
and Trifunovic was the drawing master.} 9. Re1 {Botvinnik suggested that if
Trifunovic wanted a draw he could have initiated multiple exchanges with 9.Bb5
and if 9...Bd7 then 10.Bxc6 and 11.Nxe5. } 9... a6 10. a4 Nh5 11. Nf1 Qxd1
{The trade of Qs may make things look drawish, but Botvinnik was satisfied
that he can gain just a tiny advantage in that he can now advantageously
develop his light squared B.} 12. Rxd1 Bg4 13. h3 {This drew harsh criticism
from Botvinnik because it weakens his h-Pawn. After 13.Ne3 Bxf3 14.gxf3 it's
true white has white has weakened Ps, but compensation in the possibility of
placing a N on d5. Such little nuances are what constitutes chess as it is
played at such high levels. } 13... Bxf3 14. gxf3 Nf4 15. Bxf4 {Another tiny
mistake that draws criticism from Botvinnik who calls it too straightforward
because it gives black's N a convenient square on e5 and at the same time the
P on f4 restricts white's development...his N doesn't have a good square.
Botvinnik suggested 15.Kh2, a move which Stockfish also finds acceptable.
Botvinnik was quite correct that the move isn't very good...Stockfish's
evaluation now swings in black's favor.} 15... exf4 16. Nd2 Rab8 17. Be2
{Another small error involving squares. After this move Botvinnik's N lands
on e5 therefore it was preferable to play 17.a5. In that case there would be
no black P on b5 and white would be able to challenge the N on e5 with Nc4}
17... b5 18. axb5 axb5 19. Ra6 Ne5 {Now if white tries to challenge the N on
e5 he has to play c3-c4 which would then allow black to activate his R on the
open b-file. } 20. Nb3 b4 21. c4 Rfd8 {Now it's time for black to trade a pair
of Rs. } 22. Rd5 c6 {A little temptation for white to attack the P on b4 which
Trifunovic falls for.} 23. Rxd8+ Rxd8 24. Rb6 Bf8 25. c5 Ra8 {Black has
control of the a-file. The cost of a P is only temporary.} 26. Rxb4 Ra2 27.
Nd2 {Best. White does not want to allow black control of his 2nd rank. For
example, pinning the B with 27.Rb8 is disastrous after 27...Rxb2 pinning the
N and attacking the B. } 27... Bxc5 28. Rb8+ Kg7 29. Nc4 {White has finally
succeeded in challenging the N on e5, but now it's offset by the activity of
black's R on the 2nd rank. } 29... Bd4 30. Rb7 {This is serious
miscalculation. Trifunovic should have sought an ending with Bs of opposite
color which despite his previous small inaccuracies would have given him
drawing chances. Instead he is trying to force black to exchange Ns so his B
will be on c4 and he will be attacking black's c7. What he has overlooked is
that he will now have to give up his B for the N. Correct was 30.Nxe5. }
30... Ra1+ 31. Kg2 Re1 32. Nxe5 {There is no choice. If 32.Bf1 then
32...Nxf3. } 32... Rxe2 {Not 32...Bxe5 because it results in an ending with Bs
of opposite color. } 33. Nxc6 Rxf2+ 34. Kh1 Bxb2 35. Nd8 Kh6 {White is looking
at a lost ending even if he takes the f-Pawn. If 36.Nx7+ Kh5 and black K
becomes an active participant on the K-side. And if 36.Rxf7 Rxf3 black has a
decisive material advantage. } 36. Rb5 Kg7 {Even better was 36...f6. Even
though his K gets confined to the last rank after 37.Nf7+ he can then move his
B followed by the capture of the P on f3. } 37. Rb7 Kh6 38. Rb5 {Botvinnik
conveniently does not comment on this move. If 38.Rxf7 black captures the P on
c3, defends his f-Pawn with ...g5 and then gets his K into play. However,
38.Nxf7+ is another story. After 38...Kh5 39.e5 black will have a hard time
demonstrating any superiority. } 38... f6 39. Nf7+ Kg7 40. Rb7 Kf8 41. Nd8
Be5 42. Ne6+ Ke8 43. Ng7+ Kd8 44. Ne6+ Kc8 45. Rxh7 {Defending the f-Pawn with
45.Rb3 would allow black's K to escape from the back rank with 45...Kd7. }
45... Rxf3 46. Kg2 Rg3+ 47. Kf2 g5 48. h4 Rh3 {Here the game was adjourned and
analysis convinced Botvinnik that he needed to play this because if 48...g4
white has an easy draw with 49.Rg7. That's not true. Lengthy analysis by
Stockfish does not give white any chances whatsoever of drawing. Nor does he
have any after 48...Rh3, so it's a moot point.} 49. h5 g4 50. Rg7 Rh2+ 51.
Kg1 g3 52. h6 f3 {White mates in 9 moves. } 0-1