The Father of Soviet Chess

     ...it's probably not who you think. It was Alexander Fyodorovich Ilyin-Genevsky (November 28, 1894 – September 3, 1941). Actually his name was just Ilyan, but the Genevsky was added when he joined a Bolshevik group of Russian's while in exile. 
     Ilyin-Genevsky was an Old-Guard Bolshevik, a military organizer, historian and diplomat. He was the younger brother of Red Navy leader Fedor Raskolnikov. 
     Back in 1914 an All-Russia Chess Union had been formed and was based in St. Petersburg, but Soviet authorities were suspicious of independent societies and the Union failed to establish itself. The result was independent chess clubs were replaced by a national organization that was controlled by the Kremlin. The Russian Revolution and the purges that followed it all but destroyed the middle classes and it was realized that private patrons could no longer subsidize chess, only the government could do that. 
     Enter Ilyin-Zhenevsky. He had been expelled from school in 1911 along with other members of an underground Bolshevik cell and went into voluntary exile in Switzerland. At the same time his brother Fedor adopted the name Raskolnikov and went on to become one of the heroes of the October Revolution. 
     Ilyin-Zhenevsky, at age 16, was good enough that in 1910 he played in the St. Petersburg championship and while in exile he was the Geneva champion in 1914 and that's where the Genevsky came from...he added the city of Geneva to his name. When the war broke out he returned to Russia and, despite his politics, joined the tsarist army. He was wounded and returned to St. Petersburg, by then renamed Petrograd. He suffered shell shock and lost his memory. As a result he had to relearn everything, even how to play chess. 
    The Bolshevik Revolution saw him being appointed to a key position as administrator of Petrograd's military district, no doubt thanks to his brother, a naval officer, who had taken over a military base and was leader of a group that carried out the Bolshevik coup. Ilyin-Zhenevsky was in his early 20's and was then in a position of power and influence in a situation where the only thing that counted was force. 
     The war destroyed all the famous old chess clubs and the Red Guards had vandalized everything. Including the chess clubs. Alekhine said they were prevented from burning all the chess books in the club libraries only by a second hand book dealer named Julius Sossnitsky. It was he who during the St. Petersburg tournament of 1909 was responsible for helping foreign players obtain lodging. 
     Ilyin-Ghenevsky visited Moscow in 1918 only to find most of the great players of the city dead or dispersed.   He did manage to play a match by candle light with a leading master, Nikolai Grigorev in the basement of an apartment of a Jewish chess fan named G.D. Berman and when they ran out of candles, they used matches. When it was one player’s turn to think, Ilyin-Ghenevsky wrote, “the other lit a match and held it until his fingers began to burn.” In one game when Grigoriev announced check, thinking that he would soon mate, Ilyin-Zhenevsky replied, “Excuse me, but you are in check yourself.” The game ended in a draw. 
     Ilyin-Ghenevsky determined to restore chess as a worthy activity and in 1920 he was recruited by by one of his brother's former men who was head of an organization known as Vsevobuch which was involved primarily in military training, but also was in charge of sports and other leisure activities. This put Ilyin-Ghenevsky in a position to support chess. He proposed an All-Russian Chess Olympiad,  started a chess column in the organization's newspaper and opened the first state run chess club at the organization's military sports club.
     The civil war was still be fought in some regions and so many masters were unable to attend, but there was still a good turnout.   Alekhine won the tournament. It's curious that prizes were goods confiscated from local pawnshops. Paper was scarce so no official record of this event was ever published. 
     Ilyin-Ghenevsky was soon transferred to Latvian and later back to Petrograd, but in 1924 where he eventually was informed that the leaders in Moscow wanted chess to be “an instrument of intellectual culture.” One of those fellows was Nikolai Krylenko.  He was arrested in 1937 and purged in 1938. For more on Krylenko a must read is Kevin Spraggett's article on his Blog.
    Ilyin-Zhenevsky promoted chess as an educational vehicle for developing tactical and strategical comprehension during military training, and, within the Soviet Union, he was the main person responsible for the spreading of the idea of chess as a way to teach the basics of scientific and rational thought. The first Soviet Championship in 1920 and the 1933 match Mikhail Botvinnik – Salo Flohr were organized by Ilyin-Zhenevsky. He won the championship of the Leningrad three times, in 1925 (jointly), 1926, and 1929. In 1925, he won a game against Capablanca with a stunning Q-sacrifice, thus becoming one of only a handful of players to have ever achieved an even score (+1 =0 −1) against the Cuban grandmaster.
     A variation of the Dutch Defense, characterized by the moves 1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.g3 e6 4.Bg2 Be7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0 d6 7.Nc3 Qe8, is named after him. 
    Alas, because of his association with many “enemies of the State” Ilyin-Zhenevsky himself suffered persecution in the Joseph Stalin era.  According to Botvinnik (himself described by David Bronstein as a “good Communist”) and official sources, he died in a Nazi air raid on Lake Ladoga on a ship during the siege of Leningrad. Others believe that he fell victim to the Great Purge along with the majority of the Old Guard of revolutionists. 
     Ilyin-Zhenevsky was also involved in a curious crackdown on vegetarians by Lenin.

See the Soviet site e3e5 for an interesting article on Ilyin-Zhenevsky.

Latvian Gambit

     The Latvian Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5) looks like a King's Gambit Reversed and while it is an aggressive defense, it's also very risky. It does, however, lead to tricky tactical position.     
     A lot of its adherents, mostly lower rated players, swear by it. On one website one 1400-rated player went so far as to say that IM Jeremy Silman did not know what he was talking about when he wrote, “...the fact that no grandmasters use it speaks volumes for its true lack of soundness." 
     The fellow pointed out that Spassky once won a game with it and Fischer once lost to it. I'm not sure what game Spassky won, but Fischer's loss was to Viktor Pupols in the 1955 US Junior Championship...which proves nothing. See the game HERE.
     He also pointed out that IM Tony Kosten wrote a book on the Latvian Gambit. First of all, Kosten's book was written in 1995 and I'm sure it has a lot of tactical errors that today's engines would spot instantly. Secondly, we also know that when an author publishes a book in which he recommends a dubious or obscure opening he is going to select less than stellar games for examples to “prove” his point.  He usually has to because there isn't likely to be a lot of GM games available.
     As one player wrote of his experience playing the Latvian Gambit, “Chances of my playing it again: I'd rather beat myself around the head with a brick.” Read article...
     I play it sometimes in online games; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. As I mention in the game notes, I don't know any book lines on this defense. I really don't need to because when I looked over some of my games with it the average point where my opponent made a non-book move was move 5.   So there's little point in trying to memorize anything. Here's another little surprise: I checked the last 10 online games where I played the Sicilian and the average point where we left the book was move 5 or 6! So much for the belief that we lower rated players need to memorize a ton of variations.
     Taming Wild Chess Openings by John Watson and Eric Schiller is an interesting book that tells you how to “deal with the good, the bad and the ugly.” Good openings are, of course, just that...good for tournament play. Bad openings are described as fun, but ultimately lead to a significant disadvantage against best play. Ugly openings are played in tournaments fairly often and aren’t necessarily bad, but they usually violate some basic opening principles and look wrong at first sight even to inexperienced players.  I like they way they have cute little icons that further refines the variations in the book:

Monkey - can be used just for fun but it is not recommended for important games. They tend to be offbeat and will lead to original and entertaining situations 
Thumbs down – cannot be used successfully in serious games. 
Poison – will seriously damage your position and is considered toxic. Don’t play it 
Rabbit - good for playing against lower rated competition...”rabbit-bashing.” 
Snake - can bite you if you are not properly prepared. 
Check Mark - sound but perhaps difficult to play well. 

The Latvian is an “ugly” opening.   If you want to know where your favorite opening stands in their classification you can check it out HERE.
 

Efim Geller

     Efim Petrovich Geller (March 8, 1925 – November 17, 1998) was a Soviet player and world-class grandmaster at his peak; he was also an author. He won the Soviet Championship twice (in 1955 and 1979) and was a Candidate for the World Championship on six occasions (1953, 1956, 1962, 1965, 1968, and 1971). He won four Ukrainian Championship titles (in 1950, 1957, 1958, and 1959) and shared first in the 1991 World Seniors' Championship, winning the title outright in 1992. Geller was also a coach to World Champions Boris Spassky and Anatoly Karpov. 
     Geller is best remembered today for the tactical ability and original attacking style which characterized the earlier part of his career. In later years he became a more rounded player. He was noted as an openings expert and was one of the pioneers, along with fellow Ukrainians Isaac Boleslavsky and David Bronstein, in developing the King's Indian Defense. Geller also greatly advanced the knowledge in several variations of the Sicilian Defense, such as the quiet line with 6.Be2 against the Najdorf Variation. He also introduced the sharp Geller Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.e4) against the Slav Defense. Former champion Botvinnik stated that in his opinion Geller was the best player in the world in the late 1960s.

     Geller was a man of few words, with a characteristic facial expression, frequently rocked his head and would skeptically raise his eyebrows. When playing he was fond of wearing checked jackets and there was always the ashtray full of cigarette butts next to his board for he was a chain smoker. His walk, characterized by a slow waddle reminded people of either a former boxer, which he once was, or an old sailor who had wandered on shore.  

     Geller served in the army in World War II and obtained a degree in economics from the University of Odessa. His other passion was basketball and though he was a short, stocky fellow built more along the lines of a wrestler he was a star on a powerful Odessa team. Nevertheless his basketball coach, a chess enthusiast, urged him to concentrate on chess.  

     When he appeared on the stage of the Central House of Railway Workers in Moscow back in 1949 for his first USSR Championship, it was to join the chess world's elite players for decades to come.
     At the time of his Moscow debut in 1949 Geller was 24 years old which is old by today's standards but in those years during the war there was no time for chess. He more than made up for lost time becoming a Grandmaster three years later. And, the following year he was playing in the famous Zurich Candidates tournament in 1953. He was to qualify for six Candidates events during his career. His best finish was in 1962 when he finished just half a point behind the winner, Tigran Petrosian. Geller played in numerous international tournaments, ten Olympiads, and twenty-three Championships of the Soviet Union. He won the championship twice, on 1955 and 1979 and the ripe old age of 54.
     Geller stood out as an analyst; his goal was always to find, not just a good move, but the best one. Geller said if he was feeling anxious or uncomfortable he would sit down at the chess board for five or six hours and gradually he would feel better. His widow, Oksana, remembered that sometimes in his sleep he would whisper chess moves or he might wake up in the middle of the night and go over to a table and write down some variation. His knowledge of openings was very deep. At the Interzonal Tournament in Petropolis in 1973 David Bronstein lost to Geller by playing the Alekhine Defense and commented, “...what should I have played against him? After all, he knows everything.”
     In his younger years he was primarily a tactician, but even then he understood the importance of the strategic side of the game even as he was launching a wild attack. But in the late 1950's to early 1960's he experienced a change as his play gradually shifted to deeper positional play. 
     One of his serious weaknesses was related to his desire to always find the best move...time pressure. He always had a high number of games lost by overstepping the time limit. For some odd reason he would prefer overstepping to making a bad move or playing the first one that came to mind.
     Geller sometimes did not notice the obvious. This trait caused Tahl to remark that the number of one-move blunders by Geller was greater than by any other grandmaster of his class. Korchnoi once remarked that sometimes he could be beaten simply by playing something totally unexpected because a change of the situation sometimes resulted in the often excitable Geller not being able to keep his emotions under control. 
     At the board Geller was not above trying to intimidate lesser players. He would look daggers at his opponent, bash the clock and noisily fiddle with his scoresheet. Spassky told about how Geller, when playing against a young Bobby Fischer, by his appearance and facial expressions seemed to be saying, “You're just a little shit trying to be a genius.” It was said that while Geller was good natured, he also was an opportunist and did everything that was advantageous to him. 
     Geller's last few chess years were difficult and he would likely not have been comfortable with chess as it's played today. Not only because of all the rapid and blitz tournaments which he disliked, but he disliked the new time controls which discouraged lengthy thinking, the disappearance of adjourned games and he certainly would never have liked the idea of using computers for opening preparation. 
     Geller was born into and grew up in a Jewish family in Odessa, although he was quite indifferent to his Jewishness and with his way of life he fully blended in with the environment and the country where he lived.  He was a “Soviet man” but never a Party member. Although, to be safe, in his books he was careful to talk about the advantages of the socialist system, and condemned Bobby Fischer as a typical representative of the rotten capitalist system. In the 1972 Fischer vs. Spassky match it was Geller who demanded an official inspection of the tournament hall for the purpose of discovering some secret electronic apparatus that might be influencing Spassky's thinking. Viktor Baturinsky, the chief of the chess department of the Sports Committee in the Soviet Union, claimed it was all done on Geller' s personal initiative and Moscow did not give any authorization. 
     Sosonko wtote about the time, five years after he had left the Soviet Union, he and Geller had shared first place in the Hoogovens tournament in 1977. In an article in 64 magazine written by Geller he made no mention of Sosonko. Then, on 1980, Sosonko asked Geller to sign a copy of his book on the K-Indian Defense. Geller thought about it, then simply wrote, “With best wishes.” No signature or anything! In 1970 at the Match Soviet Union vs Rest of the World Geller complained to journalists that wins by the Rest of the World team were being greeted with considerably greater applause than those by the Soviet grandmasters.
     Vladimir Tukmakov said of Geller, that while he wasn't a stupid man, he was not an an eloquent speaker and was somewhat inarticulate. So, often he simply preferred to hold his tongue, especially in a crowd, or in unfamiliar company. He enjoyed playing cards, dominoes and billiards. He liked to eat and drink with friends. But his failure to pay attention to calories and cholesterol caught up with him in his old age and he became overweight and had difficulty breathing. Still, he refused to give up cigarettes (he preferred Chesterfields). 
     He left this world after a long illness on November 17, 1998 and two days later he was buried in a cemetery only a fifteen minute walk away from his house.

Fischer vs. Geller Skopje 1967

Paul Keres, the man

     Why didn't Keres become world champion? Reshevsky thought he was too unsteady. Spassky observed that in order to reach the top you have to think solely of the goal and forget about everything else and that was something Keres simply couldn't do. 
     Raised in an independent nation, Keres witnessed Estonia occupied by Soviet forces and formally annexed by them in 1940. He then saw Estonia occupied by the Nazis from 1941 to 1944 and finally it was again occupied by the Red Army and was to remain part of the Soviet Union until after his death. 
     Keres played in tournaments in Nazi-occupied Europe where he met Alekhine on several occasions. He once asked Alekhine what he thought the Bolsheviks would do to him if he (Keres) fell into their hands. Alekhine warned him, “You should not have any doubt that they'd shorten you by a head.” 
     In the summer of 1944 Keres was playing in Finland and at the invitation of future FIDE president Folke Rogard, he went to Sweden, where he took part in a weak tournament in which he lost three games. The reason for his poor showing was that he was contemplating fleeing to neutral Sweden. So, after the tournament he returned to Estonia and made plans to return to Sweden with his wife and two children, but his wife did not want to emigrate. Her family was in Estonia and she had lived there her whole life. 
     Nevertheless, Keres had made up his mind and they departed expecting to meet a boat from Sweden that was to dock in Haapsalu in Estonia, but it didn't arrive. As a result, a well known Estonian writer, a singer and several members of the Estonian government fell into the hands of the Soviet army along with Keres. The government officials were arrested and sent to Siberia, and Keres' fate was hanging by a thread. He was summoned to the NKVD (the Soviet secret service and predecessor of the KGB) offices in Tallinn on several occasions. 
     According to GM Yury Averbach the NKVD Colonel, Boris Vainshtein, was in Tallinn on business after the Soviet Army had entered the city and had he a conversation with the head of the Estonian NKVD.  It so happened that Vainshtein was also the chairman of the Chess Section and he was asked if he could resolve the issue of whether Keres could participate in the USSR championship. Vainshtein refused to meet with Keres because it was beyond his authority to resolve the issue. The policy was those who had been in the occupied territories during the war would not be allowed into the first post-war championship. Vainshtein added that although he personally liked Keres, if they went by the book he should be given 2-5 years in prison for collaborating with the Germans and consorting with Alekhine. 
     Keres wrote a letter to the chess federation of the Soviet Union in which he tried to present the events of his attempt to flee Estonia in September 1944 in different light. He described how the Germans tried to persuade him it was essential that he be immediately evacuated to Germany. Keres then explained that because the Nazis were hounding him to evacuate and it was really against his wishes, he had to move from place to place with his wife and two little children in order to escape the troublesome offers and to create the illusion that he was, in fact, preparing to leave the country! He added that in the end he managed to escape from the clutches of the Nazis and live in a quiet place. Apparently the officials didn't believe him and never answered his letter. They stripped him of his USSR Grandmaster title and banned him from chess. 
     Fortunately for Keres, and the chess world, the first secretary of Estonia's Central Committee, Nikolai Karotamm, took Keres under his guardianship which afforded him a measure of protection that his wife believed saved him from a very, very bad fate. 
    It was suggested that Keres should write a letter to Vyacheslav Molotov, which he did. The result was he was given permission to resume his chess activities. Even so, Keres was plagued with difficulties whenever he wanted to travel abroad and the KGB didn't let him out of their scrutiny until almost the end of his life. 
     Beginning in 1958 the KGB took a special interest in Keres and began trying to get him to cooperate with the powers then in control.  But, as one KGB agent wrote in his notebook concerning a conversation with Keres, it was clear he didn't have any desire to cooperate with them. The result was both Keres and his wife became persons to be watched. A 1965 KGB memo notes of Keres' wife, “A trusted person reported that Maria Keres is a cultured, educated woman . Her character is resolute, talkative and inquisitive. It is felt that she has a high opinion of herself. The family lives very affluently. They own an American limousine. Nothing negative in Maria Keres' behavior in day-to-day life has been observed.” 

Mrs. Keres circa 2003

     Keres dodged a bullet involving his wife though. Every Soviet person going abroad had to fill out a form and one of the questions asked if they had relatives abroad. Keres always answered no and the KGB never found out that though Keres' wife had a sister who lived in Tallinn, there was another sister. She left Estonia in 1944, got married and ended up in Canada. 
     Keres got into serious trouble in 1969 when he was in Prague and had lunch with Ludek Pachman. By that time Pachman was considered an enemy of the Soviet Union. When the KGB learned of this meeting they took Keres to their headquarters in Lubyanka where he was subjected to an interrogation that was several hours long. Keres constantly had to be careful. When he went to Moscow he always took a notebook in which he noted who was talking with whom and who wasn't speaking to whom. Such information could be important.
     He always tried to remain stoic and appear unflappable. Despite his politeness and restraint, he wasn't against having fun though. He liked playing blitz and talking trash. Among close friends he liked to recite poems which were sometimes obscene. Even so, some astute observers noted that underneath, Keres was somewhat brooding by nature. 
     German was Keres's strongest foreign language but after the war he had to learn Russian. At the same time he found himself in a world where suspicion and mistrust were the order of the day. Native Russians understood the atmosphere, but Keres had to learn to live in a society with values that were totally different from those he was used to. The result was that even among fellow Soviet GMs he was always something of a foreigner. He had a slight accent, his manners, knowledge of languages, tennis and bridge, his necktie, good grooming, politeness and his overall demeanor were foreign to his colleagues. 
     Early on, Keres became a favorite of the public in the Soviet Union which irritated the leaders of Soviet chess, especially with the question of who should play a match with Alekhine for the title of world champion. Botvinnik wrote that he and Keres were friends, but Keres's wife claimed that in reality, they weren't too fond of each other. 
     When Botvinnik began preparing for a World Championship match with Alekhine he made a number of requests for himself, his seconds, his mother and his wife. He also demanded a training match against Keres! The idea was that Keres would be forced to give up any claims he had on a match against Alekhine. Alekhine's sudden death ended the whole affair. 
     There have always been rumors that at the 1948 match-tournament Keres had been forced to throw games to Botvinnik. Keres did win their last game, but it has been suggested the reason was to allow him to tie with the hated American, Reshevsky.  Actually, Botvinnik offered a draw in the opening of that last game, which Keres declined. When Botvinnik repeated the offer a few moves later, Keres swore at him in response. 
     What would have happened if Keres had escaped to Sweden in 1944?   Korchnoi thinks he would have won the world championship. Keres' widow disagreed.  He  not only lacked the singleness of purpose that becoming world champion requires but he was also incapable of exhibiting another trait gaining the world championship would have required of him...the merciless treatment of his rivals.
     Keres was from a family with longevity, but he only lived to the age of 59. Even at the relatively young age of 41 he was on medication for high blood pressure and just a few years later doctors insisted he give up tournament play. Keres had circulation problems and when playing in tournaments he was always impeccably dressed but wearing slippers because his feet hurt owing to gout.  He was returning home to Estonia after winning a tournament in Vancouver when he suffered a fatal heart attack in Helsinki. He was buried at Metsakalmistu cemetery in Tallinn.  Paul Keres Trivia  Paul Keres Genealogy

An Unexplored Opening

     The defense I used in this game has no name: 1. e4 e5 2. d4 d5. I did find some games with it on the 365Chess Opening Explorer. I don't think anybody would be surprised to discover that no well known player has ever played it...probably for a good reason! It could have turned into a rare sideline of the Elephant Gambit had white played 3.Nf3.  But, in this game white, rated 1700-ish, played what appears to be the best line according to Stockfish. When he traded Q's at move 4 (!) he assured himself of a lasting static positional advantage, but I was surprised at how quickly things got tactical even with Q's off the board! 
     As often happens, white lost his advantage when, at move 9, he decided to go after a Pawn rather than finish developing his pieces. The chances were even, but then on his 11th move, lured by the possibility of a check, white made tactical error when he overlooked the fact that 11...e5 cut off the defense of the N which had just eaten the P. My 17th move was not the best, but in practical play it created a lot of problems for white who was running low on time.
 

My Grob Attack Gets Slaughtered

     I have pretty good luck with the Grob in online 15 minute games. I've reached the position after black's 4th move many times and usually manage to get away with grabbing black's b-Pawn. Not in this game though. My opponent never gave me a chance
 

Just An Online Game

the backyard

     Chess was pretty much on hold earlier this week. First, the inevitable happened...it got cold and snowed. It was no surprise...it's been doing that here every year that I can remember and that's over 60 years, but the first time is always hard to take especially when it happens like it did this year...we had nice, 60 degree weather up until Old Man Winter finally struck and it snowed and the temperature dropped to 12 degrees overnight. Naturally, when I went out to do the driveway and sidewalks a part on the snowblower broke.  At least me and the neighbor managed a hillbilly fix using some wire I had in the garage. I was thinking we don't get as much snow as we used to when I was a kid until I remembered I was was much shorter then so the snow seemed deeper. 
     I did play some online games and the following was one of the more interesting ones...maybe even a little instructive.
 

Fedor Duz-Khotimirsky

     Duz-Khotimirsky (25 September 1881, Chernihiv – 5 November 1965, Moscow) was a Ukrainian master. And he was awarded the IM title in 1950. See Wikipedia for a complete list of his tournaments and matches. An interesting excerpt about his first meeting with Chigorin taken from his autobiography can be read HERE. 
     When the 26-year old Duz-Khotimirsky arrived in Carlsbad in 1907 to compete in his first international tournament everybody predicted that he would fare poorly. After all, he didn't even have the master title. Chigorin, who was familiar with Duz-Khotimirsky's play, predicted that people would see for themselves that he a dangerous opponent. 
     Although Duz-Khotimirsky got off to a bad start, he ended up scoring 10 out of 20. Fifty percent may not sound impressive, but it tied him for 11th place with Frank Marshall and he was then recognized as a master. Chigorin himself only managed to tie for 16-18 with 7.5 points. 
     He learned to play chess at the age of 17 and two years later was one of the strongest amateurs in Kiev. In 1903 he competed in the Third All-Russian Tournament and in the same year he won the Kiev City Championship. He played in the Forth and Fifth All-Russian Championships in 1906 and 1907. But it was in two small tournaments in Moscow in 1907 that he demonstrated his prowess. In one of them he finished first ahead of the well known Georg Marco and in the other he obtained a plus score. 
     Professional players had it tough in Russia in those days and even top players like Chigorin and Schiffers had to depend on the whims of rich patrons. When the officials of Russia's chess organizations selected Duz-Khotimirsky for Carlsbad based on his impressive performances, they wished him luck and sent him off to Carlsbad, but gave him no expense money. By the time he arrived he was almost broke and almost starved. Eventually Chigorin and the other Russian masters noticed his predicament and helped him out. This may explain his results.  In the first rounds at Carlsbad he only manged 2.5 points, but in the second half he scored wins over Nimzovich, Salwe, Spielmann, Janowsky, Berger, Mieses, Cohn and Johner. 
     Duz-Khotimirsky was recognized as a brilliant and original master. In St. Petersburg 1909 he defeated Lasker and Rubinstein in sensational style. A serious test for him was in 1910 when he faced Frank Marshal, then at the height of his powers, in a match. The result was a 3-3 tie. 
     After what was known in Russia as the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 Duz-Khotimirsky began promoting chess in Russia by touring the country giving lectures and simuls. He also continued playing in tournaments and as a master of attack, he produced many brilliant combinations that were widely published. He was awarded the title of Honored Master for his extensive work in Soviet Chess. 
     In his later years he headed the Locomotive Sports Society's chess section. He also authored a book of his best games. Duz-Khotimirsky never made any special studies of opening theory, usually following his own ideas, but he did test a number of variations in the K-Indian which was his favorite defense with black. He also, on rare occasions, played the Albin Counter Gambit. 
 

Stockfish 7...which version?!

   As I mentioned in my recent post on Stockfish 7, it comes with several versions: 32-bit, 64-bit, 64-bit bmi2 and 64-bit popcnt, but I had no idea what the last two were.  The 64-bit bmi2 won't run on my laptop because it's too old.  Since then I discovered the following explanation on Chess2U which "explains" the popcnt version.  If I understand the writer correctly, if your processor was released in 2008 or later then you should use the popcnt version.  Although the popcnt version seems to run OK on my laptop, the processor is dated 2004 so I assume that for me, the 64-bit version is the best.
    A quick engine match using both versions running on a single core resulted in 5 draws, so  apparently it doesn't make much difference which version I actually use.  Maybe my laptop just does not utilize the popcnt feature...I don't know.
     In the following position from a recent online game white (me) is to move:

The results after 10 minutes: 

64-bit 
First Choice: 17.a4 
Evaluation: white's favor at 0.91 
Depth: 29 plies 
kN/s: 2536 

Popcnt 
First Choice: 17.a4 
Evaluation: white's favor at 0.85 
Depth: 30 plies 
kN/s: 2235

Komodo 8 (as a comparison)
First Choice: 17.a4 
Evaluation: white's favor at 0.77 
Depth: 23 plies 
kN/s: 2551

So, it does not appear that it matters a whole lot which version of SF I use on my machine. Any computer gurus have a comment?

Correspondence Ratings

     Registration for the preliminaries of the Lechenicher SchachServer “World Championship” is open for those qualified, of which there are 224 players who are eligible. Only active players who have met certain qualifications are eligible. 
     I played in one of these events once and failed to qualify for the next round, finishing fourth...only the top three places advanced. A Toshiba Satellite L855 with an Intel Core i3-312M CPU at 2.50Ghz with 4.00 GB of RAM using Stockfish 6 and Komodo 8 won't get you enough wins to get very far! 
     Out of curiosity I checked the LSS ratings of those who have titles with the ICCF and FIDE. It's interesting that most of their top rated players are no longer active and the highest rated titled (ICCF or FIDE) player eligible for this event is a FIDE Woman International Master with an LSS rating of 2170. She is a new member who has only completed four games. 
     I have not included a few titled players in the 1500-1600s simply because they have recently resigned or forfeited dozens of games which is why their ratings have plummeted, but here's what I found. In addition to the FIDE WIM mentioned, the list of titled players contains: 

One ICCF GM rated a little over 2100 
One ICCF Lady GM rated in the upper 1900s 
Nine ICCF Senior IMs rated from 1833 to 2166 
Sixteen ICCF IMs rated 1774 to 2029 
Two FIDE IMs rated 2040 to 2109 
Five FIDE FMs rated 1804 to 1945 

     What this shows is how meaningless correspondence ratings and titles are. Some of the ICCF titled players appear to be older guys who earned them before engines, but these days they can no longer compete at the higher levels. That's probably because nowadays top correspondence players are using Weapons of Mass Destruction (multiple high-powered computers) running for days, using multiple engines, and selecting moves because they are .01 better than the alternatives and a couple of things happen. One, once you get a correspondence rating, it's almost impossible to gain rating points or a title unless you invest in more powerful hardware. And, two, the ratings only tell you how good a guy's hardware is, not his personal skill level. 
     It used to be that strong correspondence players were strong OTB players as well and sometimes they annotated their games. Even when engines were fairly strong, a strong OTB player could tell when his engine was suggesting less than optimal moves and he could explain why an engine move was not as good as the one he played. That's what CC GM Robin Smith demonstrated in his book, Modern Chess Analysis. Smith published the book in 2004 and advised that processor speed was more important than RAM, stating that 256 megabytes of RAM was sufficient. And, he opined that programs like Chessmaster, Chess Tiger, Fritz, Hiarcs, Junior, Rebel, Shredder as well as others were good enough. Of course the book quickly became outdated to the point that it's pretty much useless today. 
     You rarely see top level correspondence players annotating their games anymore; they can't tell you why their top of the line computers running Komodo 9 suggested a move...it's just the one their computers and engines came up with. 
     I still play on LSS, but only in the “Rapid” events and only to mess around with openings. In the last 30 games I've played the following: 

White: 
Stonewall (3 draws) 
Urusov Gambit (1 win, 1 draw) 
Sicilian Closed (1 win) 
Sicilian 2.g4 (3 draws) 
Sicilian 2.a4 (1 draw) 
Sicilian 2.g3 (1 win, 1 draw, 1 loss) 
Four Knights Game (1 win) 
1.e4 d5 2.Nc3 (1 draw) 
1.e4 e5 2.g3 (1 draw) 

Black: 
Evans Gambit Declined (draw) 
Alekhine (1 loss) 
Modern Defense (1 draw) 
Ruy Lopez Schliemann (1 draw, 1 loss) 
Ruy Lopez 3...g6 (1 loss) 
Elephant Gambit (1 loss) 
Slav Defense (1 win) 
QGD Chigorin (1 win, 1 draw) 
QP Opening (1 loss) 
Modern Benoni (1 draw) 
K-Indian (1 draw) 
Budapest Defense (1 draw) 

Score: +6 -6 =18 

     That's interesting because with the exception of a Slav, a K-Indian, a Modern Benoni and a Modern Defense the games have all been unusual lines. Engines still are not considered up to snuff compared to a GM's evaluation of an opening position because they can't understand strategic ideas until the position is well established. So, while a GM may not have much trouble figuring out how to take advantage of some of the openings I've used, they're OK to play against engines. Or...is it possible that some of these offbeat lines really are as good as the Najdorf Sicilian or the Ruy Lopez Berlin Defense or the Nimzo-Indian?! 
     Correspondence chess these days is about super-hardware...which most of us don't have. We are using a puny laptop and Komodo or Stockfish and unlike the engines of a few years ago, even masters aren't good enough to find better moves than those suggested by the engines. 
     Correspondence chess is still a good way to play for those who are lower rated, but if you are above 1800-1900 and everybody is using an engine, there's little point in playing. Several years ago I saw a discussion on correspondence chess and one guy 'fessed up. He admitted to never having played tournament chess and thought he was about 1200 strength. But...he designed his own dedicated chess computer and, at least at that time, he understood the strengths and weaknesses of chess engines. That accounted for his 2400-plus correspondence rating. 
     Just as wearing a cowboy outfit doesn't make you a real cowboy, these days having a correspondence title or a high correspondence rating does not make you real master.