Halloween Gambit Revisited

      I have posted on this gambit before, but recently came across this interesting game between two fairly highly rated CC players. Although the Halloween Gambit is generally considered bad (and nearly losing for white), it is tricky to meet over the board and as I stated in the earlier post, if the large number of short wins for White means anything, this gambit looks like something blitz players or club players might want to give a try...there's nothing to lose but the game. That makes the fact that the following game even more interesting.

New Chess Server

      The Amateur Chess Organization, headquartered in Prievidza , Slovakia, is an organization for amateur chess players up to 2400 ELO. This organization, with no ties to FIDE, claims to exclusively represent the interests of amateur chess players. They sponsor the World Amateur Championship where all players below 2400 rating are allowed to participate.
      Actually the organization began in 2011, but their server is now in Beta. On the server they offer Live Chess where the time control ranges between one minute and 3 hours and Online Chess (correspondence chess) with time controls ranging between 1 to 14 days per move. The Glicko-Rating-System is used.
      They also sponsor OTB events and offer an interesting concept called “Couch Surfing.” Players offer their home to players all over the world. The idea is if you would like to take part in a tournament in another country, but you don’t have enough money for accommodations, you can stay in somebody’s home. These days I’m not so sure that would be a good idea on the part of either party, but you never know.
      Currently the site does not appear to show a lot of activity. i.e. the forums are mostly empty and because I did not want to register on yet another chess site, I can’t tell you how much activity there is in the games section, but for anyone that’s interested, you can sign up HERE.

Chess Auctions

 

     The Lund Academy website says they “promote the training and playing of young chess talents through support grom academy members and sponsors, and benefits from chess book auctions and chess stores.” I don’t know about all of that but their site has a lot of interesting stuff up for auction: Bibliographies, Biographies, Compositions, Endgames, Game collections, General works, Jubilee and Programs, Magazines, Openings and Middle game, Tournaments and Matches and more.

Edith Price and The Gambit

 

     In 1948 Edith Price won the British Ladies Championship at the age of 76, the oldest player ever to win a national championship. She won the British Women’s Championship 5 times (1922, 1923, 1924, 1928, and 1948). She played in her first Ladies Championship in 1912, finishing second and almost took the title in 1920 and 1921, when she narrowly missed out in the playoffs, after tying for first. She took sixth at London 1927 (the first Women's World Chess Championship) and took second at Folkestone 1933 (the fourth Women's World Chess Championship), both won by Vera Menchik. She was the woman's world chess championship challenger in 1927 and 1933.
      In 1898 she founded the Gambit Chess Room for men only except for waitresses. The club was open every day except for two days in 1940 when it was bombed during a Nazi raid. It was located on Budge Row in London.  You can view a 1946 video of the Gambit Room HERE.
      According to Leonard Barden there were normally around 30 people there, 50 at lunchtime, and Kriegspiel was popular. The policy used to be no female customers, but this was relaxed by the mid-forties and Barden remembered playing Eileen Tranmer in a tournament game in the basement, which was reserved for serious chess. It was also the site of the Britain v USSR 1946 radio match.
      The high point of the Gambit week was the Saturday 'Gambit Guinea'. I find British money rather confusing but I think a Guinea is a value a little over one pound rather than a coin or note. Anyway a Guinea was the first prize in lightning tournaments played at ten seconds per move with the timing done by striking a cup with a spoon. These events came to be quite strong with several British championship players and strong amateurs taking part.
      Eventually The Gambit was demolished by developers who built the headquarters of Legal and General; the building was regarded as an architectural eyesore and eventually was itself rebuilt and as a result Budge Row no longer exists.
      Google lists a book about her at $42!

Kasparov For President

 

     I assume everyone knows that Garry Kasparov announced his run at the FIDE presidency a couple of weeks ago. Kasparov’s Facebook page describes him as a Russian pro-democracy activist and former world chess champion.
      Kasparov founded the Humanity Foundation a Free Choice group of Russian freedom advocates with the stated purpose of working for fair, democratic elections in Russia. He retired from chess in 2005 to devote himself fulltime to writing and human rights advocacy and as an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kasparov created the United Civil Front, a social movement with a mission to prevent Russia from returning to totalitarianism. He is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and various other news publications.
      He is the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation’s International Council, a nonpartisan organization devoted to defending human rights globally, with an expertise in the Americas. The Humanity Foundation BD was incorporated in 2005, and opened its offices in New York in August of 2006. His Kasparov Chess Foundation promotes chess in education.

  Kasparov's Official Site

      Kasparov plans to unseat 18-year incumbent Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in the election that takes place in August 2014. Kasparov sees FIDE as a social network that can be used to create communication for millions and millions of chess fans and he wants to use FIDE to” elevate chess from the grassroots level, to spread the game in education and as a cultural touchstone as well as a successful commercial sport.”  Kasparov’s platform has six points:

1. Serve and support the national federations. FIDE should provide for its members instead of being supported by them.
2. Increase the FIDE budget by 100% in the next two years via corporate sponsorship. He wants to use a professional marketing approach that will make chess and FIDE attractive to corporate and public sponsors.
3. Universal rating system and expansion of online services: include every game of chess played on the planet, from world championship matches to online blitz.
4. FIDE will provide benefits to the huge base of chessplayers by offering services to the federations such as online news and training, a social media platform, direct support for organizers and journalists, and assistance with fundraising and finding sponsorship.
5. Develop the next generation of chessplayers around the world by promoting and establishing chess-in-education programs. Having chess be included in the school.
6. Review FIDE regulations to protect the integrity of chess by collaborate with players and organizers on a common-sense implementation of the zero-tolerance rule that will preserve dignity and professionalism. This will be accomplished by taking steps to test, and implement strong anti-cheating measures, including severe penalties for violators as well as the adoption of anti-short-draw rules.

      It was Kasparov himself that initiated the split in chess in 1993, by creating the PCA (Professional Chess Association). Ilymzhinov took over FIDE in 1995 and successfully reunified the world title in 2006 but he has failed to raise corporate sponsorship.
      The question Kasparov and election watchers are asking is, “If he gets elected, will he be more successful in maintaining gains than he was with Intel, IBM, Microsoft, GMA, PCA or any of the other organizations he lured into chess or helped create?” Good question. I suspect much of the problem lies with Kasparov whose personality has been known to rub people the wrong way.
      I don’t know about the rest of the world’s chess federations, but in the US things are run by a bunch of good old boys who like a status quo. Throw in the fact that FIDE likes to throw money around come election time (who is NOT guilty of this?) and I don’t think Kasparov has much of a chance.

Greatest Feat in Chess History

 

     According to an article in ChessVibes Borislav Ivanov has decided to quit chess because of all the cheating accusations and after the humiliation of being asked to remove his shoes at a tournament in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Yes, I think it’s humiliating. Just think of search procedures at an airport…remove your shoes and belt and stand spread-eagled in the x-ray machine. I got singled out twice for closer examination going to Florida earlier this year. The first time was because I forgot to remove my baseball cap in the x-ray machine and that resulted in being called aside for some personal attention from the security gourds. The second time was because I forgot to put my clear plastic bag of shaving cream, toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, etc. in the x-ray tray with my wallet, belt, keys and watch. The security gourd got all excited and called his supervisor who had a lot of questions. I was a little irritated, but then realized I’m glad they are so thorough; who wants to get hijacked or blown up? It’s just a shame that chess has come to this but nobody wants to lose to Houdini in a tournament.
      GM Maxim Dlugy claimed that Ivanov was possibly cheating with his feet. Getting moves from a device in his shoe is somehow possible I suppose, but wouldn’t he still need an assistant? Without an assistant, he would have to have incredibly dexterous toes. Anyway, I gave this a lot of thought and decided it would have been better to plant the device in his butt crack. If any input from him was required he could just do butt crunches which seems easier than using your toes.
      I really don’t know what to make of this. It seems pretty clear that Ivanov had a very high matchup rate with engines in some of his games, and apparently tried to avoid suspicion by losing games to much lower rated players on occasion. While the evidence against him is circumstantial it is still admissible as proof of cheating. Circumstantial evidence is described as “Information and testimony presented by a party in a civil or criminal action that permit conclusions that indirectly establish the existence or nonexistence of a fact or event that the party seeks to prove.” Much scientific evidence (evidence that is produced from scientific tests or studies) is circumstantial because it requires a jury to make a connection between the circumstance and the fact in issue. In Ivanov’s case the scientific evidence would be the matchup rate against Houdini in many of his games.
      So the guy probably did cheat in a lot of games and is now apparently out of chess, but what fascinates me, like everyone else, is how did he do it?

A ‘Real’ GM tries Correspondence Chess

  

    I was looking at the LSS rating list the other day and noticed there was one OTB GM who played very briefly on LSS, GM Alex Fier. He appears to have entered three tournaments, won one game on a forfeit, drew 6 and either resigned or forfeited 18 games. Guess this type of chess wasn’t for him. That’s too bad because it would have been interesting to see how a real GM would have done in today’s correspondence chess world.
      Also, while perusing the rating list, I noticed a lot of correspondence names I recognized but not one was a recognizable OTB name. Out of curiosity, I checked to see what the top 40 players with LSS had for OTB and ICCF ratings. What I discovered was that on LSS, 21 had ICCF ratings that were, for the most part, near their LSS ratings. But…what about OTB ratings with FIDE? Most players were inactive OTB or were unrated. Four had low master ratings, four had Expert ratings (2000-2199), five were rated in the 1900’s and one top-rated LSS player who had no ICCF rating was rated 1661 with FIDE.
      After returning to chess in 2004 after a vey long absence I joined the CCLA with a rating of around 2060 and quickly discovered many (but not all) players around the master level were using engines even though it is not allowed. That’s what prompted me to play on LSS; at least there is no doubt. It’s a different kind of chess and I have not mastered winning consistently using an engine. Obviously, those guys in the top 40 know something more about how to use them to win than I do.
      So, exactly what does it take to reach 2400 on ICCF or LSS. It’s hard to say because top CC players don’t say much about how they manage to beat all the other guys who are also using an engine. According to one article I recently read, it can be done.
      First be prepared to spend a lot of time because ICCF tournaments can take a couple of years. Actually this isn’t much different than it was back in the days of post cards, but in this age we are used to things moving along at a faster pace.
      You will need to know a fair bit about computer software, you will need an opening repertoire program so you can stay organized, check transpositions, discover promising lines, find novelties and it must be kept up to date. 
      Many players on ICCF specialize in anti-computer strategies by steering for solid positions where they won't need to calculate a lot and one side has a slight positional advantage that can be utilized in the ending, so you will need to be something of an expert in knowing which positions are likely to lead to a won ending. You will play a lot of long games.
      Good hardware is helpful. The better the hardware the more positions you are capable of analyzing. Two cores minimum; 4 cores is better and more than that even greater. You will need Houdini 3, Fritz 13 or Aquarium and an opening software program like Bookup.
      They say that opening preparation will make up half of your strength on ICCF so you download all the archived games from ICCF and LSS. After that you use the backsolving feature on Bookup. I have never owned this so know nothing about it. Anyway, after you have enough games backsolved (apparently to find winning lines) then you start analyzing, or rather, the engine does. The author recommended using Aquarium’s IDeA analysis, but that’s a program of which I am not fond. Other programs, like DPA in Fritz, should also work. The author also suggested using both Fritz 13 and Aquarium IDeA running at the same time so that if Fritz (the faster engine) found a strong move, you can instruct Aquarium to analyze it in IDeA. At least I think that's what he was saying; I’m no computer guru and remember you need to know a fair bit about how to use your programs.
      It is also recommended that you download all the tablebases your computer will handle. There is also a program called FinalGen that’s available for free download that will supposedly allow you to generate your own endgame tablebases of up to seven pieces. It will take 30 minutes to 3 hours to solve a position.  I downloaded it once just to play around with it, got bored waiting on it, decided it wasn't needed and deleted it.
      It is also recommended that you always play to win. As to how many games to play, one tournament at a time is the recommended number. I see it quite often on LSS that some players have 20, 30 or more games running at a time. When your opponent is on line a little green light is next to his name and I have seen some players stay online for a long time. They are likely running through their games spending a minute or two on it then playing whatever the engine suggests. I like playing them because they are the easiest to beat because engines don’t play their best moves that way. Tournaments should be selected so that you are playing against opponents with the highest rating available. That is, don’t play in open tournaments where you will meet lower rated players because a loss would be disastrous to your rating.
      Be prepared to face opening novelties from highly rated players. How do you find novelties? One recommendation is to join Chess Publishing for $19.50 a year and analyze, analyze and then when you’re done, analyze some more.
      All this sounds like a lot of tedious work so I probably won’t reach 2400 any time soon. ICCF offers GM, SIM and IM titles.  I think they should have one other title that would reflect the level of my ability...BM.

Fritz 12 vs. ChessOK 2011

I have been using Fritz 12 for quite some time and back in March (I think it was) bought ChessOK 2011 because I was interested in using IDeA for analysis. As it turned out, I didn’t like ChessOK 2011…too klutzy for my taste and and not user friendly. So, after the old laptop’s motherboard crapped out and I bought a new one with Windows 8 I dug out the Fritz 12 CD and installed it on the new laptop and it works fine. Yesterday I searched through my old e-mails and found the download link and serial number for ChessOK 2011 and downloaded it. Why would I do that if I don’t like the program anyway? Because I paid for it. After the download was complete, I installed it, or rather tried to. Got a message that it won’t run, apparently because I’m using Windows 8. All I can say is Fritz 12 does, but ChessOK 2011 won’t…

Evans Gambit Accepted

      The gambit is named after the Welsh sea Captain William Davies Evans, the first player known to have employed it. The first game with the opening is considered to be Evans–McDonnell, London 1827. The gambit became very popular shortly after that, being employed a number of times in the series of games between McDonnell and Louis de la Bourdonnais in 1834. Players such as Adolf Anderssen, Paul Morphy and Mikhail Chigorin subsequently took it up.
      After Emanuel Lasker's simplifying defense to the opening in a tournament in 1895, it was out of favor for much of the 20th century, although John Nunn and Jan Timman played some games with it in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and in the 1990s Garry Kasparov used it in a few of his games which prompted a brief revival of interest in it.
      The idea behind the move 4.b4 is to give up a pawn in order to secure a strong centre and bear down on Black's weak-point, f7. Ideas based on Ba3, preventing Black from castling, are also often seen. According to Reuben Fine, the Evans poses a challenge for Black since the usual defenses (play ...d6 and/or give back the gambit pawn) are more difficult to pull off than with other gambits.
      The most obvious way for Black to meet the gambit is to accept it with 4...Bxb4. After 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 the common retreats are:

5...Ba5 According to Chessgames.com, this is Black's most popular retreat. It gets out of the way of White's centre pawns, and pins the c3 pawn if White plays 6.d4, but it has the disadvantage of removing the a5-square for the black king's knight. Black usually subsequently retreats the bishop to b6 to facilitate ...Na5, which is particularly strong when White opts for the Bc4, Qb3 approach.
5...Bc5 According to Chessgames.com, this is the second most popular retreat, with White scoring better than after 5...Ba5. This is often played by people unfamiliar with the Evans Gambit, but is arguably not as good as 5...Ba5, because 6.d4 attacks the bishop and narrows down Black's options as compared with 5...Ba5 6.d4. It is the variation seen in this game.
5...Be7 This is considered the safest retreat and has been played by Anand. CJS Purdy recommended this move if you are unfamiliar with all the nuances of this opening because he believed it was the safest and easiest to play without knowing reams of analysis.After 6.d4 Na5, White can attempt to maintain an initiative with 7.Be2 as played by Kasparov, or immediately recapture the pawn with 7.Nxe5.
5...Bd6 This is called the Stone–Ware Defense after Henry Stone and Preston Ware. The move reinforces the e5-pawn and has been played by several grandmasters such as Andrei Volokitin, Alexander Grischuk and Loek van Wely.

Chessdotcom offers an excellent 5-part series by IM Jacek Stopa on The Evans Gambit HERE.

In the following game Correspondence IM Keith Rodriquez demonstrates that it’s quite playable even in correspondence chess. My personal Correspondence Opening Book which is made up of games played at LSS and ICCF with at least one player rated over 2300 has 65 games with the Evans Gambit. Somewhat surprisingly, White’s score with the Evans is 57.7%. On the other hand, the more ‘solid’ moves 4.c3 only scores 47.4% and 4.d3 scores 45.8%!

Correspondence Chess with an Engine

      Sounds easy…just let the engine run for a while then play its top choice. But, like I said in the past, there’s more to it than just playing whatever your engine suggests. If that wasn’t so, I’d be rated 2600, have a correspondence title and be advertising myself as a world correspondence championship contender on this blog. Here are two recent examples.
      Some players complain that the finding of opening innovations by human players is a dying art because engines are coming up with theoretical novelties. Others counterclaim engines are useful to find traps and tactics but are not considered as good as strong GM’s because engines can't see strategic ideas until the position is well-established. For example, in many cases if you pick a line in a King’s Indian or a Benoni in which the GM’s claim is “even” you will find engines will evaluate it in White's favor. Even so, many opening novelties these days are engine generated with the GM giving the final evaluation.

     In this position from one of my CC games the Fritz 12 opening book has only one move for Black: 20…Rae8 with Black winning by means of a R-lift (...Re6 and ...Rg6, using the R in an attack against the White K) . This was Aronin’s move against Anand at Linares, 2009 and since Aronin won the game, it would appear that the move is a good choice.
     However, when analyzing the game with an engine it suggests that White’s position is slightly better. In fact, the engines show White keeping his slight advantage up until move 33 when Anand apparently missed the best move and the advantage abruptly swung over to his opponent. Therefore, this might be a good time to look for an improvement over Aronin’s 20…Rae8.
     20…Rad8 Houdini 2 suggests this move. Stockfish 4 initially suggested 20...Rfe8 but H2 thought one of the R's, preferably the a8R should go to the d-file. Indeed, upon deeper investigation there was an improvement for White in SF’s main line and so H2’s move of 20…Rad8 seems the best choice. Also, further investigation of 20...Rad8 with SF seemed to confirm Houdini’s evaluation. It’s likely that blindly following the opening book in this case would lead to a loss.
     Some time back I was White and was following an opening line played by two 2500 CC players in which White was given a slight plus and eventually won. I figured this was safe because I assumed both sides had checked the line with engines. That was the real problem: how many times have we been told never to assume anything? So, late in the opening I noticed what appeared to be an improvement for Black that left me in a difficult position. Of course my opponent found it too and I was left struggling for many moves; forget the engine; if a move looked like it might be good, I checked it out…all to no avail; I lost to an improvement suggested by a newer, stronger engine.

 

     In the above position I had Black and it appears that White is winning. However…and it’s a BIG however, my engines at the time (which I think included Houdini 1.5) recommended something like 45…Rg5. Instead, I played 45…Rg6! Why? Because after 45…Rg6 even Houdini 2 wants to play 46.Rxg6?? and shows White has an advantage of between 1.5 – 2.0 Pawns. Stockfish 4 puts White’s advantage at over 3P’s; in either case, an easy win for White. But…and it’s a BIG but, those evaluations are wrong! 
    Eliminate the minor pieces and White wins.  Eliminate the R's and it's a draw. To be fair though, if I had endgame tablebases installed on my computer, the evaluation might be different. I don’t know because I’ve never used them.
     So, the point of my playing 45...Rg6 was that if White relied solely on his engine, he'd jump at the chance to trade R's and thereby be left with nothing more than a draw. Fortunately, that's exactly what he did and it took him another 32 moves when we reached the following position…

  

…to realize that he couldn’t win even though Houdini 2 is still evaluating the position at over a one Pawn advantage for White.
     Sorting through all these kinds of things is what makes engine-assisted chess difficult and so labor intensive. I guess that’s why one top level CC player wrote that he couldn’t imagine playing a move with only three days’ reflection time. When the championship sections have 17 players and you need a week or more to do your research, it takes a LOT of time!

Nostalgia

Sometimes it’s fun to play over your old games. Of course most of the time it’s also pretty painful because all those brilliancies and well played positional games can turn out to be really, really badly played by the time Houdini gets done analyzing them. My opponent in this game is still around, but he doesn’t play chess any more, preferring instead to collect old records and books and observe wildlife. The position below is worth looking at because it contains some little tactical points that we both missed.

The Chess Collector

Great website for browsing! The Chess Collector specializes in rare, antiquarian and collectable chess literature. From chess books to manuscripts and periodicals in many different languages. VISIT

Salzburg 1942

     The main organizer of Salzburg 1942, Ehrhardt Post, the Chief Executive of Nazi Grossdeutscher Schachbund, intended to bring together the six strongest players of Germany, the occupied and neutral European countries. They were: world champion Alexander Alekhine, former champion Max Euwe, challenger Paul Keres, former challenger Efim Bogoljubov, winner of European tournament at Munich 1941 Gösta Stoltz, and German champion Paul Schmidt. 
     Euwe withdrew due to "illness". Actually, Euwe refused to participate because Alekhine was invited (Alekhine had written about the "Jewish clique" around Euwe in World Chess Championship 1935). His place was taken by eighteen-year-old Klaus Junge. The event took place in the Mirabell Palace in from 9th to 18 June 1942. The players had to make 32 moves in two hours; the second control was 16 moves per hour.
     Klaus Junge was a lieutenant of the 12th SS Battalion defending Hamburg. Refusing to surrender, he died – shouted "Sieg Heil!" – in combat against Allied troops on 17 April 1945 in the battle of Welle on the Lüneburger Heide. The first Junge Memorial was held in Regensburg in 1946 (Fedor Bohatirchuk won). According to GM Robert Hübner, Junge was the greatest German chess talent in the 20th century.
     In 1941 Alekhine published anti-Semitic articles in Germany and those articles were not forgotten by the chess world after the war and organizers refused to invite him to tournaments. Negotiations with Botvinnik for a world title match were proceeding in 1946 when Alekhine died in Estoril, Portugal. His death remains a controversial mystery even today. The “official” version was that he choked to death on a piece of meat in his hotel room. Other versions are he was murdered by a French "Death Squad" but a few years later, Alekhine's son, Alexander Alekhine Jr., said that the hand of Moscow reached his father. Incidentally, Alekhine, Jr. maintained an interest in chess but never played because his father never taught him.
     Bogoljubov lived in West Germany and remained active in the German chess world until his death. He died from a heart attack in Triberg in 1952.

Bogoljubow - Stoltz scoresheet

     Paul Keres travelled to Spain in 1943 and moved to Sweden in 1944. At the end of World War II, he returned to Estonia in Autumn 1944. He was harassed by the Soviet authorities (KGB) and feared for his life. Keres managed to avoid deportation to Siberia or any worse but his return to the international chess scene was delayed. He returned to international play in World Chess Championship 1948 but, as some historians argue, had to lose to Mikhail Botvinnik. Keres died from a heart attack in Helsinki in 1975.
     Stoltz returned to Sweden in 1942. He died in 1963.
     Paul Schmidt remained active in the German chess and was awarded the International Master title in 1950. Schmidt earned a PhD in chemistry from Heidelberg University in 1951, moved to Canada, then to the United States. He lived in Philadelphia where he was a college professor. He died in Allentown in 1984.

1 Alexander Alekhine xx 11 11 01 01 ½1            7.5
2 Paul Keres                 00 xx ½½ 1½ ½1 11     6
3-4 Paul Schmidt        00 ½½ xx ½½ 01 11     5
3-4 Klaus Junge          10 0½ ½½ xx 01 ½1     5
5 Efim Bogoljubov      10 ½0 10 10 xx 00          3.5
6 Gösta Stoltz               ½0 00 00 ½0 11 xx       3

Forrest Gump Played a Good Game of Chess

My name's Forrest Gump.
 People call me Forrest Gump.

Did you know that in addition to being a great ping pong player, Forrest was a chess master? No, it wasn’t in the movie, but in the original book. He learned to play chess in the jungle after his spacecraft crashed. Later, he participated in tournament chess…see chapter 10! Forrest Gump, Chess Player

Reshevsky Simul Game

Few people are aware that Reshevsky kept a winter home in Sunrise, Florida (Sunrise is situated in the heart of South Florida's tourist region) and over the years, on occasion, he gave simuls at the local club. In this simul he scored +23 -0 =3 and after the 4-1/2 hour exhibition, someone asked the 79 year old Reshevsky if he was tired to which he replied, "Not particularly."  Reshevsky's draw with 1800-rated Wayne Meyerson (who played very well)  was the first game to finish. Meyerson decided to force the perpetual check with 23...Nxg4 24. fxg4 Qxg4+. He was hoping Reshevsky would fall for 26. Qg2??, which would have allowed the win a piece with 26...Qxg2+.

Nifty Capa Win

      Capa's opponent in this game was Juan Corzo y Principe (June 24, 1873–September 27, 1941).  Corzo was a Spanish–Cuban master, and champion of Cuba immediately preceding Capablanca.
      Born in Madrid, Corzo emigrated to Cuba in 1887. He studied under Pichardo and became Champion of the Havana Chess Club. He is best known for losing to Capa (4–3, 6 draws) in 1901 when Capablanca had just turned 13. But Corzo was a force in Cuban chess in his own right. Along with Capablanca, he founded the National Chess Federation of Cuba, and was a longtime editor of Capablanca's Chess Magazine. He won the championshipof Cuba 5 times: 1898, 1902, 1907, 1912, and 1918
      This game features the Hamppe-Allgaier Gambit named after Carl Hamppe (born 1814, Switzerland– died 17 May 1876). Hamppe was a senior government official in Vienna as well as a Swiss–Austrian master and theoretician. He played matches with Lowenthal (lost 4-5) in 1846 and edged Falkbeer (16-15) in 1850. He was badly beaten by Daniel Harrwits (2-5) in 1852 an again in 1860 (0.5-3.5) in 1860. Hamppe twice won the Vienna championship (1859 and 1860), both times ahead of Steinitz. He made contributions to two opening variations: 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ng5), and 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 exf4 4.Nf3 g5 5.Bc4 g4 6.O-O gxf3 7.Qxf3.

What Is Success?

 

      What are the factors that define success? How does one become successful in life in general and in chess in particular? Peter Zhdanov explains KPIs (key performance indicators) used to measure success and seeks to apply them to the game we all love. By objectively evaluating all the components described in his article, you can create your own plan of becoming a successful person. Read the interesting article by Peter Zhdanov titled Theory of Success in Life Applied to Chess at Chessdotcom HERE.

Chess Database

Chess DB is a new site, still in Beta, that allows you to search for players - biography, games, playing style, tournaments, etc.

According to the site: The main purpose of chess-db.com is to offer you a wide choice of chess tools and services which support you in studying and improving your chess skills as well as preparing for chess tournaments. Our goal is to give an access to high quality, unique and innovative chess services which support you doing things you couldn't do before and studying chess in ways you weren't able to.

The database of indexed players is compiled from various sources and updated frequently to reflect the lateest changes in players' status, ELO rating, games, history and statistics. Currently the player database contains 1,195,639 chess profiles in total. Out of those 398,009 are FIDE registered players (both rated players and such not yet having ELO rating), and additionally 797,630 active players registered only in their national chess federations (details and drill down to come soon).

I did a search on myself and found that some of the information is inaccurate. e.g. one game was not played by me, but someone with the same name. When you register the plan is for you to be able to: By helping us to improve Chess-DB you can become supporting, premium or fellow member. Those members have access to more tools and options on the website. To upgrade your status you will need to collect enough points, which you can do by maintaining your profile information, writing quality comments, submitting links, editing articles, helping us translate the website and so forth. Supporting and additional Premium member only tools coming soon.

Chess Engine “Styles”

      After prowling forums dealing with chess engines, I have come up with a general consensus of the strengths and weaknesses of various engines which are summarized below.
      As that great teacher C.J.S. Purdy used to emphasize, a position either contains a sound tactic or it doesn’t and contrary to what a lot of players seem to think, you can’t play (sound) “tactical” chess if the position doesn’t warrant it. And when it comes to tactics all engines will quickly spot them.
      Another thing to keep in mind is analyzing games at different time limits will give different results. That’s why I don’t really trust online engine ratings too much because the rating lists are based on blitz games. Anyway, in regards to engine “styles” engines are so unlike human play that we often can’t understand their choices in some positions. Unless you are a titled correspondence player trying to find the absolute truth in a position what we are looking for is an evaluation of a given position at a reasonable depth and most all engines will accomplish that.
      Please note that these are not my opinions, but those of others.

Stockfish: Quickly finds profound ideas but upon going deeper its ideas may turn out to be not so good. Poor endgame knowledge. As I have pointed out in previous posts, it’s evaluations are usually much more optimistic/pessimistic than Houdini’s.
Komodo: Described as boring and unimaginative. Reasonably solid in all phases of the game. One player commented that when going through Spielmann's Art of Sacrifice in Chess he was surprised how many times Komodo liked the sacrifice more than other engines did. I’m not sure how that translates to the opinion that it’s boring or unimaginative unless it will not choose a sacrifice and has to have it shown to it. I’ve heard this engine plays human-like.
Houdini: Poor understanding of initiative/tempo, strong in endgame and leading up to endgame. Tactically solid. Sometimes flops around when there is no clear cut “best” line.
Shredder: Very refined understanding of tempo especially in early opening, greater understanding of many types of positions especially endgames but somewhat slow. This can result in it blowing won games.
Fritz: Sometimes heads for sharp positions it should avoid. Objective about types of openings. Can be predictable.
Critter: Tactically strong, good in the openings. Likes making pawn moves in the opening, somewhat ignorant of hypermodern strategy, good at middlegame planning, reasonably good endgame. Good at seeing options.
Rybka: No comprehension of early pawn structures or tempo. Slow ply progression, great at middlegame planning, decent endgame. In some early positions with many pieces on the board it can hit the search horizon and not progress. This can result in it falling into tactical traps. Not as good in the ending as Houdini. It’s programmer said he specifically worked on improving its understanding of attacks on the King in later versions. Versions up to Rybka 2.3.2 were relatively weak tactically compared to other top programs.
Junior: Very good at handling the Q. Too bold and too sacrificial to end up with good endgames. Sometimes sacrifices for no good reason. Understands hypermodern openings better than most engines. Not too useful for analysis because it’s too aggressive in pruning in long games. Often gives the most troublesome line (for the opponent) with regards to OTB play.
Naum: Only engine to have a reasonable grasp of fortress positions.
Spike: Does not gain much strength with extra time.
Vitruvius: One player didn’t think it is aggressive enough and its play was conservative.
Chess Tiger: Organizes attacks on a king very aggressively but burns its bridges by creating positional weaknesses.
WChess: plays like a human grandmaster. Games are virtually indistinguishable.

      I can’t be sure of the validity of this information because I don’t have a lot of experience with most of them, but, hopefully, the comments will serve as a guide in deciding which engine to use. For OTB players who are looking for human-like play, it appears that good choices would be WChess, Chess Tiger, Vitruvius, Naum, Junior and Critter. 

      If you are looking for an engine that plays most like Bobby Fischer who wasn’t too shabby a player, in my post Which Engine Plays Most Like Bobby Fischer? I reference a link to a site where the author tested a lot of engines against the games in Fischer’s 60 Memorable Games and came up with Gandalf 6 which came in with a 69% matchup. Others were Chiron 1.5, IvanHoe 9.46h and Fritz 11. Shredder 12, Stockfish 2.3.1 and Rybka 3 came in 7th to 9th.