Kottnauer vs. Kotov - Classic Bishop Sacrifice

This sacrifice is always fascinating, but the question is always, “Is it sound?”  Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.  The basic conditions for the sacrifice to work were given in Vladimir Vukovic’s The Art of Attack in Chess.  This classic work is still an excellent treatise on tactics, but because Vukovic didn’t have chess engines to help him, the book necessarily contains a lot of tactical errors in the analysis, but it is still a valuable learning resource.  The problem is that even with the guidelines Vukovic lays down to help determine if the sacrifice is correct, you cannot rely on them 100% because the positions can get very complicated and even if the ‘rules’ say the sacrifice is good, there may still be a hidden resource for the defender.

The following short, sharp encounter between Kottnauer and Kotov played in the Prague vs. Moscow match in 1946 is a good example.
 

Chessville RIP

      It has just come to my attention that, sadly, the great site Chessville no longer exists. Fortunately the ARCHIVED VERSION is still available. 
      While there, you might want to take a look at the excellent article titled The White’s of Their Eyes, A Fresh Perspective on Mastering Tactics by Andy Hortillosa. It’s a three part article in which he discusses how to improve your tactical ability. His articles are based the theories of CJS Purdy.
      From the Introduction: “Only a handful of chess authors truly understand the best method of mastering tactics. Most authors believe, as evidenced by the books and software available in the market, that puzzle exercises and solving them are the best approach to learning tactics. They could never be so wrong. The best way to learn tactics for most people is to actually learn them by seeing the transition point in its entirety from the opening phase to the beginning point of the puzzle.”
      Another excellent article was Tom Rose’s Rose’s Rants where he detailed his attempt to gain the IM title. There are also plenty of articles by many well known Masters and GMs.

Ruy Lopez Marshall Attack

      GM Jan Gustafsson is a leading expert on the Marshall Attack (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 d5) especially in the attacking lines where Black plays uncompromisingly for a win. The Marshall Attack has the reputation of being a very reliable drawing weapon in top level chess. This is surprising since the positions in the critical variations are very sharp and Black often has the initiative. White has to be very careful and well prepared, since in many cases seemingly natural moves by White can lead to a quick loss due to a mating attack. Even at high level it sometimes happens that White gets busted right out of the opening so the Marshall Attack is an excellent choice for Black.
       Still, at the highest levels the Marshall Attack has a drawing reputation. GM Gustafsson is a little more aggressive in his play, usually avoiding queen exchanges and playing for a direct attack on the White King. After all, that was Marshall’s original idea.
      In this game, I played the lesser tried 12.d3 instead of the more popular 12.d4 but did not gain any advantage. In fact, I was the one who had to be careful not to fall into a lost position. There were several chances for me to get into complicated positions where the engines were suggesting I had a slight advantage, but, as I have stated in other posts, I have a strong distrust of engine evaluations in materially unbalanced positions and so avoided venturing into those lines.

New Chess Site

Chesshood is a new correspondence and forums site that has only just recently launched.  The site says you can play correspondence chess, share photos and videos and create your own group or join others. I did not see much activity on the forum or in the games section.

The playing section:

From the Admin: Hello all, I would like to tackle an extremely sensitive subject as far as online chess is concerned! What to do with engine users? Well i have come up with a solution that may resolve this issue. Rather than banning them straight away, I have decided that Engine users will be allowed to play ONLY in specific tournaments! and against other Engines. So to put this in place, members wishing to use their software will see apposed next to their username a little icon. Now however anyone caught using an engine and not been honest enough about it (not displaying the icon) will be banned fair enough?

      At present there appears to be only 9 active players with 23 active games but they have been online for playing chess only a couple of days.  Also, there areno tournaments active at the moment and 20 or so players have open challenges and none of them have played any games yet.  Why don’t they play each other?!  From what I was able to gather, only two games have been completed and in both cases one of the players resigned without playing any moves. You start out with 1500 points with a gain/loss of 18 points.  As of today only two players are shown on the rating list, both rated 1500.

      They also have a chat room on the playing site that auto-refreshes every 5 seconds no matter what you set the refresh rate to; this makes it very difficult to read the comments.  This is a known bug that the admin will fix. 

      All in all, the site appears to have potential if enough people decide to participate in the forums and, more importantly, play there.

Sex and Chess

       The New In Chess 2012/7 (the Olympiad issue) has a disgusting article by Nigel Short wherein he claims the Olympiads are in essence all about sex.
       As National Master Jim Schroeder so succinctly put it: “Nigel Short is a walking dung-heap. He exceeded his reputation as being vulgar and crude by “dropping his trousers,” and writing a long article about sexual activity among chess players, including the “f” word, which appeared in NEW IN CHESS #7, 2012. But Short didn’t publish that putrid crap; the editor, Jan Timman did. Long known to be “sleazy,” Timman degenerates into being depraved.”  Amen, Mr. Schroeder.  See an article at Streathambrixtonchess.
      Reminds of an article of a couple of years ago published by Chess Life where Tim Taylor was attempting to earn his IM title in Hungary and detailed his attempts to have sex with just about every woman he met.  It appeared Taylor thought every woman he met was a slut.
      Concerning that article Jeremy Silman wrote, “Let’s get real. Tim wrote an accurate depiction of life in international chess – emotional ups and downs, poverty (how the desperate need for money affects one’s over the board performance), sexuality, and (of course) chess games/analysis/battle, etc. If a magazine wishes to pretend that these things don’t exist in the chess world (especially if it’s a children’s magazine), then that’s fine – don’t publish the article. Say it’s inappropriate for the magazine in question, pay the writer for his efforts, and that’s that. Just don’t shoot the messenger when he writes of real experiences, real adventures, and real emotions.”
       Taylor defended his article saying, “I wrote a light hearted, romantic, human interest and chess interest article.” Romantic? Since when is thinking just about every woman you meet is a whore and hitting on her romantic?  Light-hearted?  It might be funny to Taylor, but not to the woman, her husband, boy friend, brother, father, or whomever.  What an idiot!
      I never played professional chess so don’t know about all that stuff but I can’t imagine editors publishing such explicit and degrading material.  I don’t care about professional players’ sex lives and don’t believe, given the number of kids who read these chess magazines, that they need to be reading about such matters.  I know kids are exposed to far worse material in their everyday life, but really, does sex also have to appear in chess magazines, too?  

Critter is My (Free) Engine of Choice!

Back in September I reported that Critter may be the best engine around for endgame analysis.  I recently ran the position given in the post on January 29 titled Two Knights Ending through a gamut of engines.  The first time around each engine was given ONE minute to select a move.  To be fair I then ran the same position giving the engines THREE minutes. All engines selected the only winning move (1.Nc6) with the following evaluations.

ENGINE                               ONE min.    THREE min.

Critter 1.6a 64 bit                mate in 29     mate in 28

Stockfish 2.3.1 JA 64           97.39              mate in 26

Fritz 12 (1 CPU)                    12.50               10.98

Fire xTreme                          10.26              13.75

Ivanhoe B47 cBx64a           8.93                12.17

Strelka 5.5 (1 CPU)              2.67                 25.87

Komodo64.3                         2.33                2.32

Rybka 2.3.2a mp                  0.87                0.87

Houdini 1.5                           0.56                15.72

Rybka 3 (1 CPU)                   0.49                1.23

Naum 4.2                              0.33                0.30

Spike 1.4                                0.24                0.00

Dual core laptop, 512 hash. Critter website

       From what I have been able to glean, in tactical situations Stockfish would be the engine of choice, but if you are playing on sites like ICCF or LSS where engines are allowed, you are rarely going to get into tactical positions. Openings, positional play and endings are going to be the order of the day. 
       It should be pointed out that the commercial version of Houdini (v. 3) will easily defeat any of these free engines though.  Houdini 3 costs about 40 Euros ($53) but I do not use it because it supports up to 6 cores and 4 GB of hash.  My laptop does not have that much computing power, so I don’t feel the expense is worth it.
       Speaking of openings, Sedat Canbaz has produced Perfect 2011 Opening Book that is compatible with various GUIs.  This opening book is based on Super GM games (average 2650 Elo) and is tuned and optimized for the strongest lines for the playing styles of the top 20 chess engines in engine vs. engine play. Note however that the book’s depth is only up to 8 moves. When it comes to engine vs. engine play (such as you are likely to run into on ICCF or LSS), opening books play a vital role and are the key for getting a high Elo performance and as the author points out, it is wrong to view openings based only on engine evaluations. 

Test Position

The following position is from Bronstein vs. Euwe, Zurich 1956 where Black has just played 14…Bg4and Bronstein replied 15.Qxc5 which Najdorf gives a “!” stating, “At this moment in the game Bronstein thought for an hour and a quarter before deciding to take the Pawn.  What was it he saw during this time?”  Najdorf then analyzes the moves 15.e5 Bxf3 16.exf6 Nxd4 17.Bxh7+ Kh8 18.fxg7+ Kxg7 19.Bd2 and the at this point he considers several Black replies. Najdorf concludes that if White plays 1.e5 a draw is likely so Bronstein, whom he calls a formidable fighter, decided on another equally complicated line of play.  After a wild fight, the game was drawn.

 

While looking at the position with an engine I was curious to see what move various engine running on my dual core laptop suggested after 3 minutes and came up with the following; I have truncated the main line to 4 moves.

Engines agreeing with Bronstein and Najdorf and selecting 1.Qxc5

Critter 1.6a 64–bit

1.Qxc5

1.e5 0.21

1.d5 -0.26

1...Nxe4 2.Bxe4 Rxe4 3.Ne5 Be6 4.Be3 Qb6 -0.10

Naum 4.2

1.Qxc5

1.e5 -0.15

1.d5 -0.28

1...Nxe4 2.Bxe4 Rxe4 3.Ne5 Be6 4.Be3 f6 0.00

Rybka 2.3.2a mp

1.Qxc5

1.e5 -0.15

1.d5 -0.26

1...Nxe4 2.Bxe4 Rxe4 3.Ne5 Be6 4.Be3 f6 -0.06

Stockfish 2.3.1 JA 64bit

1.Qxc5

1.e5 -0.32

1.d5 -0.52

1...Nxe4 2.Bxe4 Rxe4 3.Ne5 Be6 4.Be3 f6 0.00

Spike 1.4

1.Qxc5

1.d5-0.22

1.e5 -0.33

1...Nxe4 2.Bxe4 Rxe4 3.Ne5 Be6 4.Be3 Qb6 0.00

Strelka 5.5 (Single core)

1.Qxc5

1.e5 -0.64

1...Nxe4 2.Bxe4 Rxe4 3.Ne5 Be6 4.Be3 Qe7 0.05

Fritz 12 (Single core)

1.Qxc5

1.e5 -0.01

1...Nxe4 2.Bxe4 Rxe4 3.Ne5 Be6 4.Be3 f6 0.00

Engines NOT agreeing with Bronstein and Najdorf and selecting 1.e5

Komodo64

1.e5  

1.Qxc5 0.02

1.d5 -0.14

1...Nd7 2.Bxh7+ Kf8 3.e6 Bxe6 4.Be4 Qd6 0.40

Houdini 1.5 x64

1.e5

1.Qxc5 -0.13

1.d5 -0.26

1...Bxf3 2.exf6 Nxd4 3.Bxh7+ Kh8 4.fxg7+ Kxg7 0.00

      The problem with many engine rating lists is that they are based on blitz games, so I prefer the CCLR rating list where the games are played at 40 moves in 40 minutes. On CCLR’s current list we find that among the engines listed in my experiment (all running on 4 CPU) Critter is rated #2 behind Houdini 3, Stockfish is #4, Komodo is #6, Strelka #7, Naum #8 and Spike is #13.

       Of course no engine seems to be a match against Houdini 3 Pro x64.  In a 10-game match running on  6 CPU played at 20 minutes plus 20 seconds at ATOMIC Testing, Critter 1.6a x64 got smashed 7.5 – 2.5.
       I don’t know what, if any conclusions can be deduced from this brief (and unscientific) experiment, but for me, given that Critter 1.6a 64–bit selected Bronstein’s move and is ranked second on CCLR’s rating list, I think I should make it my engine of choice for long analysis.

A Bishops of Opposite Color Ending

From time to time I enjoy going over my old games with an engine just to see how I did back in the old days.  More often than not it’s disappointing because games I thought were well-played had some serious errors.  The following ending, which arose from a Ruy Lopez Marshall Attack, was disappointing because I thought I should have won despite the ending with Bs of opposite color.  As it turned out my judgment was correct…Black should win from the starting position. Generally though the ending was pretty well-played by both sides.
 

Amusing post on BoingBoing

      “The only reason the computer was banned from the competition in the first place was the UNFAIR, RACIST and ILLOGICAL prejudice against non-human players. If the computer is better than a human, let it compete. And that goes for the Olympics and cycling too, drug cheats would be over if the Tour de France got with the 20th century and allowed the riders to have motorcycles. Who wants to do all that peddling up and down mountains?
      Chess is obviously over as a competition sport. It’s kind of boring anyway. At a certain point the only way to advance is to learn a bazillion openings by heart. Tedious!
      So let’s replace them with an international chess cheating championship in which cheating is allowed but you get disqualified if you are caught. So the competition would become finding the most ingenious ways to hide your computer backup.”

      Amusing. At first engine use was only a problem in correspondence, but now players are perfecting the art of cheating OTB. The question often asked is why do people use engines when they are not allowed? Some people simply want to raise their ratings. Exactly why this is so, I can’t answer because on most sites you are anonymous and Internet ratings mean absolutely nothing. In fact these days all correspondence ratings mean absolutely nothing.
      Some titled players have been caught using engines in Internet sites. I suppose it’s because in some of the tournaments there is money at stake and they feel they must because their opponents use engines. In the case of alleged cheating by a certain woman GM on one popular site I think it was because she used the site primarily to advertise her teaching services and books. To that end she played quite a few people and likely did not want to mess around actually playing low rated players so she just faked it.
      OTB cheating in one form or another has a long history. The use of computers to cheat in OTB tournaments in recent years are too numerous to mention and are pretty well known anyway and since some correspondence sites now allow engine use, I like the idea put forth by the poster on BoingBoing that engine use should be allowed in OTB events as long as you don’t get caught.

Study the Classics?

      Thanks to reader Paul Gottlieb, I recently purchased Najdorf’s Zurich 1953 which has for the first time been translated into English and published by Russell Enterprises. You can read my review on the Book Blog. 
      This is a great book, but it got me to thinking why would anyone want to study old chess games? What’s to be learned? For most of us GM games have too many moves we don't understand and today’s players routinely violate positional principles set down by the great players and teachers of yesteryear. Also in one of John Nunn's books he discussed the number of errors found in older master games and how many were unsuitable for generating good tactical puzzles.
      Still, those types of games are still good to go over though because with careful scrutiny you might find improvements in the play. Despite their mistakes and sometimes antiquated ideas there is a certain value in studying the games of the older GMs. The kinds of errors you see being made in their games are usually not the kind that you see in today’s modern GMs, but what you do learn is how to punish them when they are made. If you start out with modern games, they can be hard to follow because you don’t yet know the basics.
      Dvoretsky and Yusupov have written about the value of noting an interesting idea or position and analyzing it yourself. You should keep this analysis organized so that eventually more and more games with a similar themes will be collected and analyzed. GM Alex Baburin's book on the IQP is an example of this. Another huge benefit of playing over GM games is helping to develop pattern recognition.
      GM Greg Serper wrote about a conversation he had with a strong player who told him he was going to delete all the old games from his database because they were practically useless. Serper commented that he was appalled because he came out of the old Soviet School which placed strong emphasis on knowledge of the classics.
      Serper believes you should play through classical games if you want to be a strong player because as he explained, these days when two GMs play and one of them sees a good idea, in most cases his opponent sees the same idea and prevents it. As a result, you cannot learn this idea that was left unplayed unless it is mentioned in the annotations.
      The advantage of playing over old games is precisely that the players were not as sophisticated as modern GMs and therefore when they had an idea very often their opponent had no clue about it. Playing over the old classics allows you to have them explain their thoughts and ideas to you. Many modern players simply don’t do that because they already understand the whole process.
      And…don’t forget, Fischer was familiar with the classics and even got some ideas from old Steinitz games! Botvinnik read Capablanca’s Chess Fundamentals and he ranked it highly. Petrosian said he grew up on The Art of Sacrifice in Chess by Rudolf Spielmann and he was also a big fan of Nimzovich’s My System. One of Kasparov's favorite books was Bronstein's 200 Open Games. If you don't have any books by classical players in your library then you should buy some...NOW!  Najdorf's book is a good starting point.

Interesting R and P Ending

I recently won a lost game when my opponent exceeded the time limit in a won position.  Despite the fact that I had blundered a P earlier apparently I still had drawing chances in the position below.  Houdini rates the position as only slightly in White’s favor, but on my 29th move I made an elementary mistake in allowing my opponent to get a passed P supported by his R behind it.
 

At this stage of the game (Carlsen) is not a strong player…

      Can you believe that’s what Sveshnikov said? Carlsen won the 2013 Tata Steel with a fantastic score of 10/13 and as a result many people have been praising his play and noting the variety of ways he has won.
      Anand said of Carlsen, “Magnus is much more efficient at collecting points. He is winning every kind of position… it’s an amazing skill.”
      Against Pentala Harikrishna, he actually played the Ponziani which resulted in an even position and eventually a decisive win. What’s the last time you heard of a player of Carlsen’s caliber playing the Ponziani?!
      Some have even been comparing him to Bobby Fischer but amazingly Evgeny Sveshnikov (and Boris Gelfand) have spoken with disdain about Carlsen and other new kids on the block. Sveshnikov said of Carlsen’s openings, “He is interesting as a practical player, but… Carlsen’s weakness is above all the opening. At this stage of the game he is not a strong player. He should be outplayed in the opening, while his opponents do the opposite. The way new generation plays the opening… I would say those aren’t neither Polugaevsky nor Kasparov. They lack succession in openings. They just play chess, that’s why their chances to fight for the title are small.” What?! Sveshnikov thinks Carlsen is not a strong player?!
      He even went on to add, “I would say Magnus’s future doesn’t look so promising. He is surely a very talented player, but only those who will be making the strongest moves can become the champions. Only scientific component of chess has a chance to win nowadays. Not a single practical player has a chance of becoming the champion without scientific approach to the subject.”
      Reminds me of those guys who said Fischer didn’t have a chance against Spassky.

Houdini 1.5 vs. Cockatoo

As mentioned in a recent post, I purchased the Chess Enthusiast app for the Nook Color and its Cockatoo engine plays quite well; I can’t seem to beat it in blitz. So, I decided to play a blitz game (10 minutes) pitting it against Houdini. Certainly Houdini performing on my dual core laptop has the edge over Cockatoo on the Nook, but even then Houdini’s blitz play was not perfect. Cockatoo played rather passively and allowed Houdini to build up a strong position, but the surprise was that Houdini’s aggressive play beginning at move 34 was not quite sound. Cockatoo’s defensive abilities were not up to the task and it soon succumbed to a strong attack. When I checked the position with Naum, Fritz 12 and Fire xTreme at move 34 both agreed that 34.Qf3 kept a significant advantage and the hasty 35.Bxg6 was also not the best. Cockatoo’s losing blunder was grabbing the Q at move 37 instead of capturing the R on g3.

How Do You Explain This Game?

      Taking the advice of reader Paul Gottlieb, I recently made a Nook purchase of Najdorf’s Zurich 1956 tournament book and have not been disappointed. I much prefer Najdorf’s notes to Bronstein’s! I came across the game below between Keres and Boleslavsky that seems incredible. I have been playing through the games with the help of Houdini and when I reached this game was somewhat taken aback by Boleslavsky’s play. Was this a “real” game or did Boloeslavsky throw it it?
       In a paper dated 2008 Charles C. Moul of Miami University and John V. V. Nye of George Mason University conducted a Statistical Analysis of Championship Chess 1940-78.Their goal was to “examine whether players from the former Soviet Union acted as a cartel in international all-play-all tournaments – intentionally drawing against one another in order to focus effort on non-Soviet opponents – to maximize the chance of some Soviet winning.”
       On the eve of the Zurich 1953 Candidates Reshevsky said, “This is going to be a tough tournament to win – probably the toughest of my career.” Being that the Soviets most likely did make every effort to keep him from winning the tournament, he was more right than he knew. Reshevsky was probably worn out at this tournament because he had to play a lot more 'real' games. Russians were afraid of Reshevsky.
      Dr. Reuben Fine once wrote he declined his invitation to The Hague 1948 because he did not want to play in a tournament where the Soviets threw games to each other. I’m not entirely convinced that Fine did not come to that conclusion until later in his career and thought it sounded like a plausible excuse or if he realized that after the war, his strength had simply declined and he chose not to embarrass himself. Since Keres lost his first four games against Botvinnik, suspicions are raised that Keres was forced to throw games to allow Botvinnik to win. On the other hand, Reshevsky once commented that he did not think Keres was steady enough to have ever won a world championship.
       It is strongly suspected that the Soviets cheated in Hague-Moscow 1948, Saltsjöbaden 1952, Zurich 1953, and Curaçao 1962. It is known that they passed notes as was reported in some 1953 and 1954 issues of Chess Review. I have never seen the article by Bronstein but supposedly in the Soviet chess magazine 64 he admitted that some games at Zurich were fixed and that a KGB official asked him, "Do you think we came here to play chess?"
       After round 6 Reshevsky was in lead with 4.5 pts., a half point ahead of Keres and Smyslov. At the time this game was played the Old Indian was a relatively unexplored opening and Boleslavsky’s Rook sacrifice on move 9 was a novelty that looked more like a blunder as he got nothing for it.  Najdorf could not explain it and I was thinking even GMs are not immune to the admonition about not grabbing the b-Pawn in the opening. But then I got to wondering, did Boleslavsky blatantly throw this game?

K and P ending

Here’s an interesting K and P ending.  White’s first move looks fairly obvious, but an interesting situation arises if he mistakenly plays into the drawing line 1.Ke6.

White to move and win

1.Kf6!

The only winning move.

1.Ke6 Kg7! On any other move Black would lose. 2.Kd5 Kh6 3.Kc6 Kxh5 4.Kxc7 Kg5 And this position is a draw regardless of what White plays with one exception. 

White to move and lose

If White plays 5.Kc6 he loses! e.g. 5.Kc6?? 5...h5 6.Kd6 h4 7.c4 h3 8.c5 h2 9.c6 h1Q and Black wins the Q vs. P ending.  But if White play 5.Kd7 for example, then after 5...h5 6.c4 h4 7.c5 h3 8.c6 h2 9.c7 h1Q 10.c8Q the game is drawn.

1...Kf8 2.c4
2.h6 Ke8 3.c4! (3.Kg7 Capturing the P on h7 only draws. 3...Ke7 4.Kxh7 Kf7! Other moves lose) 3...Kf8 4.c5 winning.

2...Ke8
2...Kg8 is equally futile... 3.Ke7 h6 4.c5! This is quickest 4...c6 5.Kd7 Kf8 6.Kxc6 Ke7 7.Kb7 winning.

3.c5 Kf8
3...Kd7 also loses after 4.Kg7 with an easy win.

4.c6 h6 5.Kg6 Ke7 6.Kxh6  and wins

Two Knight Ending

      The endgame with a K+2Ns versus K+P is unusual because the by possessing extra P the K cannot be stalemated (provided the blockade on the P is lifted at the proper moment, of course) and therefore the stronger side can often force mate. There are technical requirements to win this ending known as the "Troitzky line" and it may require up to 115 moves. That’s theoretically speaking of course. Andor Lilienthal failed to win it twice in a six-year period in Norman-Lilienthal and against Smyslov. However, it has been won.  Jakob Seitz (1898-1970) the German–Argentine master once won this ending against Znosko-Borovsky. View that game.
      For several days now I have been messing around with this ending and discovered the following position in which White also has a P.   I found it is quite difficult, there being only one first move that allows White to force the win.  I also discovered a couple of other positions where there is only one move leading to a win.

White to move and win

1.Nc6

This is the only move that will allow White to force the win. If, for example, 1.a4 f3! The only move to draw 2.a5 f2 3.a6 f1Q 4.Nc7! On any other move, White loses. 4...Qe1 5.Kd6 Qd1 6.Kc6 Qc1+ 7.Kb7 Qb1+ 8.Nab5 Qa1 9.a7 drawn.

1...f3

It does not help Black to go after the P with 1...Kc3 2.Nb6 f3 3.Na4+ Kc2 4.Nb4+ Kd2 5.Nc5!  (This is the only winning move.) 5...f2 6.Ne4+ Ke2 7.Nxf2 and wins.

2.Ne5+!

Again, the only winning move.

2…Kc3 3.Ng4

Capturing the P by 3.Nxc3 only draws: 3…Kb4! This is the only drawing move because now the P is lost.

3…Kb4 4.Nf2!

The only winning move.

4….Kb5

No better is 4...Ka3 5.Nb6 Kxa2 (5...Kb4 6.Kc6 Kc3 7.Nd5+ Kc2 8.a4 wins) 6.Kc4 Kb2 7.Kb4 Ka2 8.Nc4 Kb1 9.Kc3 Ka2 10.Kc2 Ka1 11.Kb3 Kb1 12.Nd3 f2 13.Na3+ Ka1 14.Nb4 f1Q 15.Nbc2#

5.Nc7+ Kb4 6.Kd4 Ka3 7.Na6 Kxa2 8.Kc3 Ka3 9.Nc5 Ka2 10.Ncd3 Ka3 11.Nb2 Ka2 12.Nc4 Kb1 13.Kd2 Ka2 14.Kc2 Ka1 15.Kb3 Kb1 16.Nd3 f2 17.Na3+ Ka1 18.Nb4 f1Q 19.Nbc2#

Stan Vaughn

      Stan Vaughan, a Life Master with the USCF whose rating briefly peaked at over 2300, was born in Murray, Kentucky in 1956. He was recognized as an outstanding student of American history and as member of the Kentucky Junior Historical Society  drafted a legislative bill which was passed by the Kentucky legislature leading to the preservation of historic covered bridges. He once served as a community church as a minister.
      He has run for congress, been a formidable correspondence chess player, heads the World Chess Federation, Inc. and is a Grandmaster with the World Correspondence Chess Federation (WCCF). And that’s just to name a few of his “accomplishments.”
      Vaughn learned to play chess while in high school in 1975 and in 1980 was the gold medal winner representing the United States at the International Student Games and became American Chess Association national champion the same year. According to Vaughn, his rise eclipsed those of Morphy and Fischer. 
      Vaughn writes that in 1982 he set the world record for number of blindfold simultaneous games played and in February, 2012 he set a Guinness World Record of 110 blindfold simultaneous chess game wins.
      Vaughn received a Masters in Business Administration and earned a PhD in Accounting, is an expert in cryptanalyst which led to his being noted for having solved two of the most important previously unsolved ciphers in the world and in 1986 he was the national Trivial Pursuit Champion. In 1988 he set a world record for the most simultaneous correspondence chess games, playing 1300 games at one time and in 2004 set the world record for over the board simultaneous games, playing 730 games at one time. In 1988 Vaughn won the US National Correspondence Chess Championship of the Chess Connection (TCC) followed by two Mensa World correspondence Chess Championships in 1989 and in 1995. He won the 3rd, 4th, and 5th World Correspondence Chess Federation Championships, being title holder from 1995-2007. Las Vegas mayors have proclaimed 'Stan Vaughan Days' numerous times in recognizing these achievements as well as those as a chess coach, having coached numerous individual and team scholastic chess champions during the 1980's and 1990's.
      I could go on about his achievements, but that’s probably more than enough.
      Stan is also a politician for real. He has run for congress on the Independent American Party platform in Nevada.
      His name is mainly associated with the World Chess Federation. According to their website, “The World Chess Federation, Inc. is a charitable domestic non – profit organization established in 1992 by Undefeated World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer and later in 1996 incorporated to its present status in the State of Nevada. WCF is devoted exclusively to supporting the educational, cultural and recreational value of the game of chess” and “WCF’s most visible activity is organizing The World Chess Championship.” WCF awards organizational titles, including World Arbitrator and sanctions worldwide chess tournaments run by chess tournament organizers who agree to run their events in accordance with WCF rules and regulations. 
      They also calculate ratings and award titles for achievement in competitive play: WCF World Grand Master, WCF World Master. Here is, according to their website, an abbreviated history of the organization:

1988 – Grandmaster Stan Vaughan, Frank Metz and Kon Grivainis created World Correspondence Chess Federation. 1992 – FIDE President Campomanes signed over the rights to the World Chess Champion title to Bobby Fisher. 1992 – Under WCF banner Bobby Fischer played and defeated Boris Spassky for the World Chess Champion title in former Yugoslavia. Bobby Fischer renounced FIDE and turned over his title to WCF. 1994 – Bobby Fischer retired from chess as an Undefeated World Champion. Stan Vaughan became the successor to the above title. 1996 – WCF was incorporated in State of Nevada, USA. 2008 – Bobby Fischer dies. 2009 – After 17 years of litigation WCF was awarded the worldwide rights to “The World Chess Federation”, “The World Chess Champion” title and the rights for the service mark “The World Chess Championship” and “The World Chess Federation Hall of Fame”. 2009 – present – WCF successfully organizes and runs WCF Championship, Candidate and Qualifying tournaments in Las Vegas, Nevada.
      WCF Top Live ELO Ratings 1-Stan Vaughan 3902 USA WCF Grand Master 2-Bobby Fischer (deceased 2008) 2897 Iceland WCF Grand Master 3-Vassily Ivanchuk 2845 Ukraine 4-Boris Spassky 2805 France WCF Grand Master 5-Gata Kamsky 2786 USA 6-Emil Sutkovsky 2741 Israel 7-Le Quang Liem 2735 Vietnam 8-Anna Muzychuk 2678 Slovenia 9-Krishnan Sasikiran 2614 India 10.-Ron Gross 2581 USA WCF World Master 11-Baadur Jobava 2560 Georgia 12-Francisco Metz (deceased 2007) 2500 Mexico WCF World Master 13-Robert Robey 2435 USA 14-Andrew Hammond 2378 England 15.-Chad Gauvin 2221 USA 16-Alexander Stamnov 2201 Serbia .
      Vaughn writes, “Fischer retired undefeated and declined to defend the title in 1994, at which time as the challenger and American Chess Association champion titleholder, I became WCF champion and defended the title successfully in 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 (also that year Garry Kasparov declined in writing on October 29, 2008 to challenge me for the WCF).” In 2008 Varuzhan Akobian defaulted rather than violate terms of a non-compete contract with FIDE which prohibited him from competing for the world title which is owned by World Chess Federation.
      Chess Life of the 1990s carried ads for his tournaments, sanctioned by his organization. It has been said Vaughn has a long history of organizing tournaments with the same name as official USCF sanctioned events.
      Vaughn also authored Paul Morphy: Confederate Spy. “Few people realize the key role played by world chess champion Paul Morphy throughout the American Civil War. Written by modern world chess champion Stan Vaughan, Paul Morphy: Confederate Spy offers intricate insights into the international intrigues entered into by the young Morphy as he plays his way into the hearts of foes and friends alike. Travel with Morphy and live through the actual chess matches played with Spanish royalty, French aristocrats, and more as the young diplomat gathers information and assistance for the Confederacy. A true page-turner.”

Vaughn’s most recent endeavor is sainthood for Bobby Fischer.

Visit the WCF Website

Stan's political campaign

Independent American Party – Nevada