IM Miroslav Shvarts - Almost a Fake Grandmaster!

     As a result of his victory in the 2004 Kali Cup, a double round robin event that was held in Mindzentkalia, Hungary in 2004, German International Master Miroslav Shvarts notified the German chess federation that he was applying for the GM title because the win secured his third norm.
     Specific details about how this tournament was organized and exactly how the participants were involved are sketchy, but the ratings official of the German Federation, Christian Krause, became suspicious of the GM norm and notified the Hungarian Chess Federation which conducted an investigation. It turned out that the tournament was a complete fraud and no games were actually played. The FIDE Ethics Commission investigated and reached the same conclusion. 
     One year suspensions were handed out to: IM Vadim Eschenko, IM Timofey Galinsky, GM Mato Damjanovic and GM Attila Czebe.  An exception was made for one "competitor", GM Predrag Nikolac, who maintained that he never participated in the tournament and was seen in Germany during the time tournament was supposed to have been played. 
     Shvarts was hit with the hardest sanction, a two and a half year suspension, because he was the primary beneficiary, receiving his third and final GM norm and because his statements about his involvement in this tournament were misleading. For instance in a letter to FIDE he stated he had received his final norm at the tournament and had a certificate signed by the arbiter, Gyorgy Fazekas, and by Zoltan Ambrus of the Hungarian Chess Federation. According to the FIDE site Shvarts' current rating is 2344.
     Then, at a special hearing by the Ethics Commission, Shvarts stated that he had come to realize the Kali tournament was fraudulent, but did not realize it at the time of the event.  The Commission found his testimony unconvincing. At the time he was serving as president of the Saxon Association. 
     IM Lajos Istvandi, organizer of the event was also forbidden to organize, arbitrate or to participate in all chess events for two years. In addition, Interntioal Arbiter Fazekas, who contributed to creating the report at the request of Istvandi was forbidden to arbitrate any chess event for one and a half years. 
     The following game by Shvarts, like the game in the previous post, shows there's a vast difference even between an IM and an ordinary master. Shvarts outplays his master opponent because the master made just one small error when he played 17...b5.
 

Alexandru Crisan, Fake Grandmaster

     FIDE title regulations say that titles are for life but, but it is possible to lose one's title. "Use of a FIDE title or rating to subvert the ethical principles of the title or rating system may subject a person to revocation of his title upon recommendation by the QC and the Ethics Commission and final action by the General Assembly." That's what happened to Alexandru Crisan of Romania when he manipulated the system to gain the GM title.
     On the July 1997 rating list he was rated 2530, but on the January 1, 1998 list he was ranked number 33 in the world with a rating of 2635 without having played any games of note in the previous 10 years against the top 10 players in Romania and without participating in the top group of the National Championship, representing Romania in any Chess Olympiad or producing any result from any official or well-established tournament in Romania or other place in the world. Crisan apparently falsified tournament reports to gain the GM title. 
     As a result a committee investigating the matter recommended his rating be erased and his title revoked. While the Romanian Chess Federation initially favored action against Crisan, eventually he became the RCF president and changed the policy! FIDE intervened to find a resolution.
     It was decided that Crisan would verify his rating by playing in 3 tournaments selected by FIDE and in the Vidmar Memorial in 2001, held in Slovenia, his result was disastrous 0.5 out of 9. But then he bounced back by winning two tournaments in Yugoslavia. At Tekija and Kladovo, he won both events by drawing most games in a handful of moves and defeating a few opponents who were all competent players, but they had fallen on hard times when Yugoslavia melted down in the 1990s. Bribery was suspected.
     In 2011 Crisan was arrested and imprisoned on fraud charges relating to his management of the company Urex Rovinari. As the former owner of Urex Rovinari, he was sentenced to four years in prison for having claimed 80,000 euros in exchange for an intervention involving the construction of a landfill. Chesswise things remained unresolved until August 2015 when he was stripped of his titles and his rating adjusted down to 2132. 
     He's not the only person who arranged titles for himself by "playing" in non-existing tournaments. Ian Rogers alleged that Andrei Makarov (at the time a FIDE vice-president and Russian chess federation president had arranged an IM title for himself. 
     In 2005 FIDE refused to ratify norms from the Alushta (Ukraine) tournaments, claiming that the games did not meet ethical expectations despite the fact that a number of players involved protested. See the ChessBase article HERE. A different Ukrainian tournament in 2005 was found to be completely fake. Read about it HERE and a followup report HERE.
     Oddly, when the Crisan affair was under investigation by FIDE they solicited the opinion of GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili, who at the time was one of the highest rated players in the world. After reviewing Crisan's games, he stated, "For me if I am asked how Mr. Crisan reached his rating of 2600, it is clear to me that it was done in an illegal way." It was odd because Azmaiparashvili, already a strong player, was alleged to have rigged the results of the Strumica tournament of 1995 to allow himself to obtain his title.  Sveshnikov referred to the incident as an open secret. 
    In 2004 at the closing ceremony of the 36th Chess Olympiad in Calvia, Azmaiparashvili was arrested by local police and held in custody for several days. The attitude of the event's organizers towards Azmaiparashvili had been soured when, upon his arrival in Spain, he had attempted to secure two hotel rooms for himself, claiming he was entitled to one in his capacity as a FIDE vice-president and another because he was a player in the event. 
     At the closing ceremony when he approached the stage, apparently in an attempt to inform FIDE officials that the organizers had neglected to award a prize named in honor of former Women's World Champion Nona Gaprindashvili, he got into a conflict with security officials and in the ensuing scuffle both he and a security guard were injured. A press release from the organizers placed the blame on Azmaiparashvili saying that after he had tried to gain admittance to the stage on several occasions he "without any previous provocation, assaulted the agent with a head butt to his mouth". FIDE blamed over-zealous policing, saying, "Despite his clear VIP identification, he was severely beaten up by several security guards". Azmaiparashvili was due to appear in court on July 22, 2005, but the charges were dropped. 
     He had also been criticized in 2004 over arrangements for the 2004 Women's World Championship when Georgian players Lela Javakhishvili and Ana Matnadze accused him of behaving "in a hostile and intimidating manner, using inappropriate and vulgar language and bringing to tears our mothers". 
     In spite of his skullduggery Crisan was a near-master and what makes the following game interesting is that it shows how easily a 2700 GM can roll right over an Expert even though the Expert doesn't make any serious blunders. Crisan's position just slowly deteriorated after a couple of second rate moves until there was nothing left. 

Ruy Lopez - Brentano's Defense

     This defense against the Ruy Lopez was invented by Franz Brentano (January 16, 1838 – March 17, 1917), an influential German philosopher, psychologist, and priest. Brentano claimed that the offer of the g-Pawn was sound and that the defense was satisfactory. The German magazine Wiener Schachzietung published 29 lines of analysis on it, but the opinion was that Brentano's claims were not supported in practice. 
     You won't find a much published on Brentano's Defense. I did find a 3-page (I think) pdf that mentioned some analysis by Hugh Meyers, but I can't relocate it. No matter...all the analysis was pre-engine and was, in all likelihood, riddled with mistakes. 
     Looking over the defense with Stockfish showed a few lines that it evaluated as nearly equal, but in the long run, I don't think black's position would hold up against a strong player. That said, in amateur play it might be interesting to try it out, but the same can be said of about any opening.
    The following simul game was played in Lincoln, Nebraska by Pillsbury back in 1901. Pillsbury had a rough night, scoring +6 -4 =2. One bright spot was the following typical attacking game which is vintage Pillsbury. Black specifically requested that Pillsbury play the Ruy Lopez because he wanted to test the new defense. Pillsbury obliged and showed him what was wrong with it.
 

Playing Stronger Opponents

     In his book The Road to Chess Mastery GM Alex Yermolinsky gives some helpful advice on what to do and what NOT to do when you face a stronger opponent. 
     He begins by acknowledging that there are several emotional factors you have to face, some for you and some against you and the trick is to accentuate those in your favor and diminish the negative factors. It takes a conscious effort to adjust your thinking pattern to the game situation because if you can't, then your play is probably going to be based on emotional factors.
     Frequently the worst, and one of the most common, mistakes to make is to deviate from opening setups you are familiar with. Usually this is because we think our usual openings are not good enough and our opponent may have a better understanding of them than we do. In those situations it is a frequent occurrence that a dubious opening will be chosen, studied briefly and then in the game we play the first 10-12 moves correctly before getting disoriented and don't have the slightest idea how to continue. Yermolinsky wrote that there is nothing he wanted than to have his opponent avoid theoretical lines trying to surprise him. The reason is that a dubious opening will give him a good position with plenty of pieces on the board and he will find a way to outplay anybody 300 rating points below him. 
     The best thing to do is play the sharpest lines in the best openings. You'll probably get outplayed in a long game, but if you can whip up an an attack from a sound position, you might be successful.
     Most players buy a book or CD on an opening that has a catchy title like Play This Crap and Win! that promises success when they play it and then memorize the variations. What usually happens is the opponent doesn't play a book line or the player forgets his analysis or gets things mixed up. The result is mistakes are made due to a lack of understanding of the position.
     I ran into classic example of this in a tournament once against an opponent rated a couple of hundred points below me. He was racing through the opening while I was playing rather slowly...a sure sign he was booked up. Late in the opening he sunk into a long think...meaning my last move was not in his book or he had forgotten the analysis. After his long think he made a huge blunder and lost quickly. 
     In the post mortem I got a lecture on the opening and when we got to the critical point he explained that my move wasn't any good. Why, I asked. The answer: Because it wasn't what Bobby Fischer played. Imagine that! My move wasn't as good as Fischer's. My only question was, "If it was so bad, why didn't you refute it?" All I got was a blank stare. 
     Another common error is trying to simplify at all costs in the belief that it will give better drawing chances. This is because of the belief that the higher rated opponent has superior tactical skills so we should avoid tactical situations. There's also the hope that the higher rated opponent, not wanting a draw, will reject good moves just because they lead to simplification. The truth is, nothing will make your higher rated opponent happier than seeing you trying to desperately simplify a position, because it often is done at the cost of positional considerations that will tell against you in the long run. Reducing the number of pieces on the board does not always simplify things. 
     Then there is a desire to create a material imbalance which usually means a sacrifice. This is often done because we think we have a better chance in an unclear position because the higher rated player is too good at positional play. Alternately, there is a fear of sacrificing anything because we believe our opponent is better at calculating. 
     Time management can also be a factor if we insist on checking and rechecking our calculations. This is often the case when we believe we are more prone to blunders than our opponent. 
     Inviting a crisis unnecessarily. We do this because we figure in long maneuvering games we will get outplayed. Yermolinsky also offered the advice that one should be careful before playing a freeing move because if they are truly freeing, the stronger opponent would likely have prevented it. 
     Playing defensively. We see threats, real or imagined, and figure it's better to be safe than sorry. The result is we abandon our plan in the hope of getting into a quiet position.
     Attacking whether justified or not because of the fear that we may end up in an inferior position, especially if it means playing an ending.
     Generally speaking, active play offers the best chance when facing a higher rated opponent. 

     Here is an example of of me trying to take my higher rated opponent out of the book and paying the price. When my opponent played the Bird Defense against my Ruy Lopez it didn't bother me because I play it myself sometimes. But, in this game I was outrated by a couple of hundred points and believed that if he played the Bird he was probably quite familiar with it.  So my rationale for playing the unusual 5.Qf3 was 1) it deviated from a setup with which I, and probably my opponent, was familiar. 
     Then on move 12 I launched a premature attack before I had castled and finally 3) in an effort to simplify, at move 15 I made an unprovoked exchange which resulted in a near lost position. 
 

Chess Master vs Chess Amateur

     I discovered this old book by Max Euwe and Walter Meiden in the library and checked it out so I could check it out. 
     First thing...the book is in descriptive notation, but for old timers that's not problem. If you don't know descriptive notation you should learn it because doing so would make a lot of excellent old books available. The other thing I disliked is that, like Reinfeld, the authors don't give the player's names, dates or events...to protect the guilty, I guess. It's not important, but I like to know that stuff. It's mostly a good book but Euwe made some comments on the openings that are pretty dated. 
     The book contains 25 games and focuses on how an amateur's weak moves are punished by masters... premature attacks, crude attacks, neglected development, neglecting to deal with a well posted N, open lines, that sort of thing. In many ways the book is similar to Jeremy Silman's The Amateurs Mind where he looks at positions from games between him and his students. Long variations are avoided and there are lots of verbal descriptions which makes it very helpful for lower rated amateurs to follow. 
     The games start out in order of the amateur's skill level starting with beginners up to maybe the 1800-1900 level. There is a brief introduction to each game that explains the basic concepts point by point. 
     Naturally, the games aren't perfect and in some cases they are downright horrible, but that's how amateurs play, so there is some value in looking at those games. Maybe even more than there is looking at high level GM games. That's because that's how we amateurs play...horrible and the miniscule subtleties of GM play are usually lost on us anyway. That's why I always liked tournament books that contain all the games from an event. I like looking at the games of the tailenders just to see how ordinary master really play...sometimes it's encouraging to know they are often far from perfect! 
     One of the more interesting games was game 24 which featured the Master, as white, playing King's Gambit, Allgaier Gambit. I got the impression that Euwe, in trying to show the superiority of the master's play, did not give sufficient credit to black's play which was pretty good up to his 9th move which allowed the Master to equalize. After that, the amateur didn't make any gross blunders, but instead made a series of small mistakes that soon lead to him having a lost position. Let's take a look at it. 
 

How Did He Manage to Lose?

Click HERE to watch.

Peter Thiel, Chess Master...among other things

     I remember seeing the name Peter Thiel appearing in Chess Life years ago and remembered him as a promising young player, but then he seemed to have faded from prominence. 
     When his name popped up in the recent Presidential campaign I didn't make the connection until just recently. It turns out that although Thiel budded from a promising junior into a journeyman master, he has been a busy man heavily involved in many other things. 
     Born October 11, 1967 in Germany Peter Andreas Thiel is a German-American entrepreneur, hedge fund manager, venture capitalist, philanthropist, political activist, and author. Also, Thiel seems to have what many would call aberrant religious views. Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and was the first outside investor in Facebook, is primarily a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. Often referred to as the "Don of the PayPal Mafia", Thiel was ranked No. 4 on the Forbes Midas List of 2014, with a net worth of $2.2 billion, and No. 246 on the Forbes 400 in 2016, with a net worth of $2.7 billion.
     Thiel was the son of a chemical engineer who moved his family to Cleveland, Ohio when Thiel was only a year old. His father then worked for various mining companies and for a while they lived in Africa and it is believed that it was during that time that Thiel developed some of his philosophies. One of his elementary schools in Africa required the wearing of uniforms and utilized corporal punishment such as whacking student's hands with a ruler for mistakes. This my have been the cause of his distaste for uniformity and regimentation. The family eventually settled in Foster City, California.
     He studied philosophy at Stanford University, graduating with a B.A. in 1989. He then went on to the Stanford Law School, and received his J.D. in 1992.  After graduation, he worked at various jobs before founding Thiel Capital Management in 1996. He then co-founded PayPal in 1998, and served as chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. After eBay's acquisition of PayPal, he went on to found several other companies. 
     Thiel is gay, pro-marijuana and politically a libertarian who has supported vocally and financially the Republican John McCain and the Libertarian Ron Paul. In November 2016, he was named to the executive committee of President-elect Donald Trump's transition team and is also being considered to head the Food and Drug Administration under Mr. Trump. He has also contributed millions to various causes he believes in. 
     Sidebar...I saw John McCain give a speech in 2008...what stood out to me was that he had on a very nice suit! I don't know a lot about his politics, but I do admire the fact that he endured a great ordeal as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. I went to the speech just because I wanted to say I saw the Republican presidential nominee for the 2008 United States presidential election. When he began speaking, I left. While walking across a field to reach the parking lot and my car I got stopped by a Secret Service agent who wanted to know where I was going. When he found out I had actually been in the building, he immediately wanted know what door I came out of. After being briefly questioned further, I was allowed to proceed. Back to Thiel...
     Thiel is also a man who believes in the power of technology and is on a mission to change the world through technology.  He also wants to find a cure for death. Regarding death, he says, "You can accept it, you can deny it or you can fight it. I think our society is dominated by people who are into denial or acceptance, and I prefer to fight it." 
     Theil has poured millions of dollars into what he calls ‘the immortality project’. He says that he would like to live longer, and would like other people to live longer and as such, he has signed up with a company in the field of cryogenics to be deep-frozen at the time of his death. 
     He started playing chess at the age of 6 and in 1980 was ranked as the 7th-best U.S. player in the under-13 category with a rating of 1791. By the way, these days the top 13 year old in the U.S. is Awonder Liang, rated 2609 and the top 12 year old is Brandon Jacobson rated 2374; times have changed!  His other interests were reading of science fiction, playing Dungeons and Dragons and he was obsessed with Tolkien. In fact, two of his businesses are named after Tolkien references: Mithril and Palantir. 
     His current USCF rating, last published in 2005, stands at 2287 and he holds the titles of Original Life Master, National Master, Life Master with the USCF. His highest rating was 2342 in the early to mid-1990s. He has not played tournament chess in a number of years, but he did make an appearance at the recent World Championship match to make the ceremonial first move at the tiebreaker round.
 

Found this deep in My Games Database

     Today the temperature is stuck on 28 degrees and we are having our first snow...a light lake effect snow. Yesterday was dark, cold and blustery...good days for looking over some old games buried deep in my database. I came across this one played against an old friend from our OTB days which we played, without a time limit, on a server. It has been sitting there unannotated for the last ten years and when I took a look at it I was surprised to find that it was actually pretty well played, plus it has some instructional value. 
     Normally I don't present long games because most players, myself included, are not looking for long endings...we want snappy tactics. But, what makes this game interesting is the unbalanced material in the ending. Those types of positions are always difficult to evaluate and engine evaluations can sometimes be misleading. I have posted numerous times on this situation and here is yet another example of the difficulties involved! 

2010 - Revisiting Minor Pieces for a Rook - Part 1  
2010 - Revisiting Minor Pieces for a Rook - Part 2
2011 - Engine Positional Evaluations and Comparisons 
2011 - R vs B and N
2013 - Two Minor Pieces or Rook and Pawn...which to choose?! 
2014 - An Instructive Tahl - Botvinnik Game
2016 - When Should You Sacrifice on f7?