Reshevsky Slugs It Out With Najdorf....

    ...literally. Samuel Reshevsky was known to be cantankerous at times; a Chess Life article some time back said he played with "sharp elbows." The Urban Dictionary gives the definition of the expression sharp elbows: In its most basic sense, it means pushing through a crowd. But it is also used for a more metaphorical sense. e.g. for people who don't mind pushing other people out of the way or stepping on others to get what they want. In other words, it means to be aggressive or ambitious, usually at the expense of others 
     It must run in the family. Larry Evans once complained that one problem with dealing with Reshevsky was his wife who was a pest that interfered in his games. Evans went on to describe an incident at the US Open in 1955 where he was analyzing another game with Donald Byrne while Reshevsky's game was in progress and Mrs. Reshevsky came over and knocked the pieces off the board and shrieked at them, "Stop analyzing my husband’s game!" Then there was the incident involving Reshevsky's son HERE. 
     On two different occasions Reshevsky and Miguel Najdorf slugged it out. One time was at Amsterdam in 1950 when after a game Reshevsky punched Najdorf in the eye. Najdorf won the tournament and Reshevsky finished second. Italian Eugenio Szabados, who finished tied for last place with Haije Kramer of The Netherlands and Harry Golombek of England, played in the tournament as part of his vacation and managed to draw with both Najdorf and Reshevsky. 
     The problem was that Reshevsky found out that Najdorf had helped Szabados analyzing his adjourned game against Reshevsky and got mad about it. I am not sure what the other occasion was, but back in 1936 at the Nottingham tournament Reshevsky and Fine nearly got into a fistfight when Fine became increasingly upset at Reshevsky’s attempts to win a dead-drawn endgame. 
     In this position Reshevsky is to play his 29th move...

     He should now play 29...Nb4 followed by the capture of the a-Pawn which would have left him with excellent winning chances thanks to his two outside passed Ps. Instead, he made the mistake of thinking the trade of Qs would facilitate the win and played 29...Qb4 only to find out that after 30. Rc2 Qxd2+ 31. Rxd2 Nb4 32. Bc4 Nxa2 33. Bxe6 fxe6 34. Kf3 Rb3 35. Nc4 Rb4 36. Rc2 b5 37. Nd2 Ra4 38. Rc8+ the win wasn't going to be so easy.

     Here it looks like he should have an easy win because of the a and b-Pawns. Things weren't so simple though because Szabados' pieces are near the action while Reshevsky's K and B are cut off far, far away. Here is the position after 51.Rxb5:

     If black plays either 51...Rc2 or 51...Rc1 then according to Stockfish and Komodo the evaluation is 0.00. Instead Reshevsky played 51...a4? and suddenly white is slightly better because both the Ps fell leaving white up a P and it's black who ended up fighting to hold the draw. The game dragged on until move 105, but Szabados could make no progress. 
 

The Best of Fred Reinfeld

     In his lifetime Fred Reinfeld wrote over 100 chess books, more than any other author in history. He also wrote books on geology, history, numismatics, checkers, and astronomy.
     Most chess players snicker when you mention that you read a Reinfled book and they have often been derisively referred to as "potboilers." That's not entirely true. Maybe his later books aren't so great, but his early ones were really very good. In 1950 Reinfeld said, “In those early days I played and wrote seriously – and got nothing for it. When I pour out the mass-produced trash, the royalties come in.”  The mass produced trash allowed him to earn a living so he abandoned tournament chess and writing serious books. Those early books were written in the pre-engine days and the annotations may not always be accurate, but overall, they were excellent...and the games? Reinfeld was always careful to choose good ones. 
     Reinfeld began writing on chess in 1932 while working as a part-time chess instructor for the adult-education sections of Columbia and NYU and in 1933 started a publishing business out of his apartment that was called the Black Knight Press; he printed correspondence courses and pamphlets for beginners. A lot of his early books were typewritten then duplicated and stapled together and during the Depression he peddled them to bookstore. 
     In 1933, Reinfeld became a contributor to Chess Review, annotating games and doing book reviews. He also wrote his first serious books, Book of the Bled Tournament (with Isaac Kashadan) and Chess Strategy and Tactics with Irving Chernev. 
     In the 1930s, Reinfeld was also running ads in Chess Correspondence magazine offering to annotate any chess game for a dollar, or about $15-20 in today's currency. In 1941, Reinfeld ghosted My Fifty Years of Chess by Frank Marshall for which he was paid $100 ($1,600 today). It took him three weeks and, if you ever read the book, it's a real delight!  Besides Marshall's book, it's well-known that he also ghost wrote the book of Reshevsky's games along with several other popular books where he was assisted by Irving Chernev.
     Occasionally you will see a chess book, Chess: the way to win, Pocket Guide to Chess Openings for example, authored by Edward Young...that was a pseudonym used by Reinfeld. Why? Who knows? 
     Here is my list of Reinfeld books that ARE worth reading. I haven't included any of his instructional books because the only two I can remember reading are Attack and Counterattack in Chess and a book of miniatures, the name of which I have forgotten. 

Tarrasch's Best Games 
Keres' Best Games 
Lasker's Greatest Games
Colle's Chess Masterpieces 
British Chess Masters Past and Present 
The Immortal Games of Capablanca 

The Human Side of Chess the Great Chess Masters and Their Games - idiosyncrasies of Anderssen, Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine and Euwe. 
Great Games By Chess Prodigies - 50 early games of Morphy, Capablanca, Reshevsky and Fischer 
Prize Games of Chess Masters - 50 games brilliant games spanning nearly 70 years 
Great Short Games of the Chess Masters - 80 brilliant miniatures 
Development of a Chess Genius - 100 Alekhine games 
Great Moments in Chess - Collections of games 
The Fireside Book of Chess - enjoyable reading about the history of chess.

FIDE, Fischer, Karpov, the Panama Papers and Allegations

     I just came across an intriguing ChessBase article concerning the Panama Papers. The Panama Papers is one of the biggest leaks and largest collaborative investigations in journalism history. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists website has a page devoted to it. 
     The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The leaked documents were created by Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, some dating back to the 1970s. The documents illustrate how wealthy individuals, including public officials, are able to keep personal financial information private. Because of the number of documents the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists was asked to investigate. The ICIJ consists of journalists from 107 media organizations in 80 countries. See Wikipedia article... 
     What does all that have to do with chess? See the ChessBase article.

Fritz 15

     When Fritz 15 was released a few months ago there was some hope that the addition of Vasik Rajlich, the author of Rybka which shook up computer chess a few years ago, would make a big difference. The Fritz 15 engine is a multiprocessor version and can theoretically use up to 2048 cores. I tried to find some reviews of Fritz 15 that detailed its strengths, weaknesses and playing style but couldn't. The only thing I could find was various engine rating lists. 
     On the CCRL (Computer Chess Rating Lists) it's ranked number 7 at 3172 which is a considerable distance behind Komodo 9.42 (3354), Stockfish 7 (3337) and Houdini 4 (3255).
     On the CEGT (Chess Engines Grand Tournament) rating list Fritz 15 is ranked in 6th place at 2965, also way behind Komodo 9.3 (3244), Stockfish (3243) and Houdini 4.0 (3066).
     On Owl Computer Chess Engines Fritz 15th is in 9th place. The top three are Stockfish (3441), Komodo 9.42 (3416) and Houdini 4 Pro (3345).
     The IPON-Round Robin Rating List also has Komodo 9.42 (3236), Stockfish 7 (3232) and Houdini 4 (3123) as the top rated engines with Fritz 15 in 7th place (3001).

     So, it appears that Fritz 15's results have been disappointing.  That's not to say that it hasn't improved because on the CCLR 40/40 rating list for all engines (all versions) Fritz 15 is in 7th place at 3172 while Fritz 14 is way down in 28th place at 3024. 
     Komodo 9.4 sells for $60 and the one year subscription for free upgrades is $100. By the way, you can download Komodo 7 for free on the site HERE. Version 7 is still pretty good. On the CCLR list for all engines, all versions it's tied for 6th place at 3181.  You might want to download it for use along with Stockfish because Komodo is probably the most positionally accurate in middlegame positions with no tactics and it's also good in the openings. But, it needs longer analysis time than Stockfish.
     Of the other strong free engines ChessLogik's open-source development of Fire has officially ended and is no longer available for download, but the open source Gull engine (3199) is available at SourceForge.  Another good engine is Critter which can be downloaded HERE.
     Given that Komodo is in a nip and tuck battle for first place with the free Stockfish, both of which are far ahead of their competitors, I don't see any reason to part with $63 just to get the Fritz 15 engine that comes with the GUI. That is unless you want the Fritz GUI which is, in my opinion, one of the best available. But, personally what I would do is buy Fritz 13 (the download version is $40 and only available to customers located in the United States) or even Fritz 12 if you can find it, then add Stockfish to the engine list. I've used Fritz 12 for years and found it perfectly satisfactory because I'm not interested in all of the training features and access to online engine analysis features that later versions offer. 

 

 

Fritz 12

     I also use Chess Assistant 16 which also has some great features not available in Fritz 12, but it's interface is not as clean and it takes time to learn to use all its features.

Chess Assistant 16

For Your Viewing Pleasure...An Exciting Win by Gaprindashvili

     Georgian female chess players have been especially strong; its players having once held the Women’s World Champion title for just under 30 consecutive years. The first was Nona Gaprindashvili, who in 1962 became the Women’s World Champion at the age of 21. 
     A five-time world champion, she played a big role in helping the Soviet Olympiad team to 11 team gold medals during her tenure while earning nine individual gold medals herself. She is also the first woman to earn the GM (men's) title. Gaprindashvili held her title until 1978 when she was dethroned by Maya Chiburdanidze. Even after losing the title Gaprindashvili’s love for the game and her fighting spirit enabled her to win four Senior World Championships (1995, 2009, 2014, and 2015). 
     She was so popular in Georgia that parents named their daughters Nona in her honor.  She was a celebrity and was recognized on the streets and she inspired a host of Georgian female stars: Maya Chiburdanidze, Nana Aleksandria, Nana Ioseliani, Nino Gurieli, Ketevan Arakhamia and Ketevan Kakhiani.  In 1975 she had a perfume named after her. Interesting fact: Traditionally, when Georgian women got married their parents would give them chess sets as part of their wedding presents. So, maybe that has something to do with the amazing success of Georgian women at chess. 
     Gaprindashvili was born May 3, 1941 in Zugdidi, Georgia (then part of the Soviet Union) and held the women's world championship from 1962–1978. In 1961, at the age of 20, she won the women's Candidates Tournament and played Elisabeth Bykova. Gaprindashvili won the match easily, scoring +7−0=4, and went on to defend her title successfully four times: three times against Alla Kushnir and once against Nana Alexandria. She finally lost the title in 1978 to 17-year-old Maia Chiburdanidze, by a score of +2−4=9. 
     Gaprindashvili played for Soviet Union in the Chess Olympiads of 1963, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1974, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1990, and for Georgia in 1992 and won the Soviet Women's Championship five-times: 1964, 1973, 1981, 1983, and 1985. 
     During her career Gaprindashvili successfully competed in men's tournaments, winning the Hastings Challengers tournament in 1963/4 and tying for first place at Lone Pine International tournament in 1977 against a field of 45 players which included many GMs. The Lone Pine victory gave her two GM norms over 23 games, not the 24 required.  According to Pal Benko, always somewhat a snot in my opinion, when in 1978 FIDE awarded her the men's GM title, she did not actually earn it. Benko felt this represented a "slight tarnish" on her title. 
     In 1995 Gaprindashvili won the Women's World Senior Championship for the first time followed by victories in 2009, 2014 and 2015. In 2005, at age 64, she won the BDO Tournament in Haarlem, The Netherlands with a score of 6.5-3.5 and a performance rating of 2510. She won also the Women's European Senior Championship in 2011 and 2015.
     Gaprindashvili was awarded with the Order of Excellence in 2015 by President of Georgia for "her outstanding contribution to the country and nation" and "representing Georgia at an international level". 
     In the following game she defeated veteran Fridrik Olafsson in the Euwe Stimulans in 2007. This tournament was won by the 25-year old Zambian IM Amon Simutowe, completing his final GM norm in the process. This win is very exciting. Gaprindashvili got the initiative and kept up the pressure in a tactical battle until Olafsson finally went astray.
     Olafsson first won the Icelandic Championship in 1952 and the Nordic Championship a year later, rapidly becoming recognized as the strongest Icelandic player of his generation and he had considerable success in international play, but was soon eclipsed by Bent Larsen. 

Vsevolod Rauzer

     Just about everybody knows his name, but not his story or his games.  That's a shame. 
     Vsevolod Alfredovich Rauzer (October 16, 1908 – 1941, Leningrad) was a Soviet Ukrainian master known for his contributions to opening theory, especially of the Sicilian Defense. The Richter-Rauzer Attack is best known, but he was also an early pioneer of what is known today as the Yugoslav Attack. He also composed chess problems and studies. One of Russia's most creative masters in his day, during the ten-year period from 1927-1937 he was one of the country's strongest players, but his career was a tragic one. 
     At the age of 15 his first problem was published and after moving to Kiev he gained attention nationally after writing a K+B+wrong colored RP vs a lone K that appeared in Shakhmatny Listok. The article was attacked in print by Alexey Troitsky. Troitsky was one of the greatest composers of endgame studies and is regarded as the founder of the modern art of composing chess studies. He died of starvation during WW2 at the siege of Leningrad and unfortunately his notes were destroyed during the siege. 
     Concerning the article, Troitsky wrote that Rauzer was all wrong: not only was his analysis wrong, but his assertion that the ending had never been analyzed before was also wrong. Naturally Rauzer was devastated and for several months he analyzed the ending with Alexander Konstaninopolsky, a then 18-year old player. What Rauzer discovered was that players like Teichman, Kling and Horwitz had indeed analyzed the ending before him, but he stood by his conclusions. Troitsky eventually replied in another article admitting that the analysis was correct. 
     Rauzer was a strange man. In appearance he had gray eyes, fair hair and was so light skinned that according to one Russian writer he was so pale he appeared to be almost an albino. Rauzer worked as a messenger for a state financial department and found dealing with the problems of everyday life difficult; he was absent minded and careless about everything except chess. Konstantinoplosky wrote of him, "Everything else, food, sleep, personal contact with people, literature and so on, he considered unnecessary." Rauzer often got up at 6:00am and analyzed until dark, stopping only for short breaks and snacks. He commented that, unfortunately, he could not make himself work on theory more than 16 hours a day because his head couldn't take it. He loved opening theory and went his own way. 
     In those days almost all of the best players lived in either Moscow or Leningrad, but Rauzer lived with his mother in Kiev in a one room apartment which also served as a chess club for young players. They held a lot of blitz tournaments...no clocks, which were scarce...somebody would call out the seconds until it was time to move.
     Rauzer learned chess on his own from a book by Dufresne at the age of ten and studied the games of Lasker and Tarrasch. In fact in 1934 he wrote an article for Shakhmay v SSSR in which he defended Tarrasch's teaching, claiming that (the then) modern players did not understand or appreciate Tarrasch. Like Tarrasch Rauzer had little respect for the fianchetto of the KB by either white or black and he tried to refute the Nimzo-Indian because he believed the idea of black's playing ...Bxc3 in the Nimzo was completely anti-positional.
     While Rauzer made some important endgame discoveries, particularly in R and P vs. R endings, it's his opening analysis that is best known. He began as a 1.d4 player, but after reviewing his games in the 1931 Soviet Championship, which was won by Botvinnik with Rauzer finishing in a very respectable tie for 8th and 9th out of 17 places with a score of 9-8, he determined that 1.d4 lead to too many draws and so it was an error; the best move was 1.e4. 
     He was determined to refute the Sicilian and, also, to prove that the French wasn't quite sound and the result was that he became one of the leading Soviet opening theoreticians. It was his opinion that after 1.e4 black should be immediately on the defensive and that belief lead him to discover new strategies in the Ruy Lopez, Four Knights Games and the move 6.Bg5 against the Sicilian which avoided the then dreaded Dragon. He also discovered the idea of meeting the Dragon with castling Q-side, playing f2-f3 and then advancing the h-Pawn...eventually this came to be known as the Yugoslav Attack. Like American master Weaver Adams, Rauzer tried to prove that after 1.e4 white should, if not win, at least always get an advantage. 
     Rauzer played in ten USSR Finals Championships and finished in the top ten four times. Not only was Rauzer known for his weird behavior away from chess, he also exhibited it at the board. Botvinnik once told how he had tried to get Rauzer to play well against the eventual second place finisher, Ruimin, near the end of the 1931 championship tournament and Rauzer told him, "I can't play chess well. I have irregular facial features."  In 1935 at one tournament Rauzer lost a game as white and was so upset that he said he couldn't come to dinner and had caviar sandwiches sent to his room. When he didn't show up for breakfast or lunch the next day his trainer, Batuyev, checked on him and found him asleep, the sandwiches untouched and chess pieces scattered all over the place; Rauzer had studied all night. 
     Rauzer finally moved to Leningrad in 1934 which is when he reached his peak, finishing tied for first with Chekhover in the 1936 All Union Tournament of Young Masters. That's when Levenfish, writing in 64 magazine, claimed that Rauzer had transformed from a talented master to a "dry dogmatic" because of his opening opinions. This infuriated Rauzer who replied the tournament really showed how skilled he was in the middlegame thanks to having read Tarrasch's The Modern Game of Chess. In fact, in early 1934, Rauzer had written a letter to Tarrasch with his thoughts on the latter's theories, but Tarrasch died shortly after receiving the letter so never answered. 
     In the late 1930s Rauzer's health and mental status began to worsen and he never played after 1937. Late 1940 found him in a psychiatric hospital and he died late in 1941 at the age of 33, perhaps as Botvinnik suggested, during the siege of Leningrad. 
     Here is one of his early games when he was a 1.d4 player that features a stunning Q-sac that may or may not have been the best, but the play is fascinating. 
 

Fischer Slays a Dragon

     I posted on the Reshevsky vs. Fischer match several years ago and this, the second game in the match, was one of the more interesting ones. It was a Sicilian Dragon which is still a great defense with its thematic tactical and strategic themes even if it has pretty much been abandoned by the GMs. Fischer never thought much of it, but it was a familiar standby for Reshevsky. 
     In this game Reshevsky lost the theoretical duel, but his legendary defensive cunning allowed him to save the day, But, as often happened, it cost him a lot of time on the clock and that factor, combined with Fischer's constant pressure, eventually took its toll.
 

How Good Was Marshall's Intuition?

     The other day I ran across an article in the March 1943 issue of Chess Review in which Frank Marshall explained his Marshall Attack in the Ruy Lopez. 
     Marshall first played it back in 1918 against Capablanca. He had been analyzing the defense for years and came to the conclusion that it was sound...not that it wins, but that it gave black winning chances and should be good for at least a draw.  Marshall actually lost his game against Capablanca who accepted the P and defeated Marshall's attack even though he was facing a prepared variation he had never seen before. 
     I am not sure what to make of the Marshall. It's still a sharp one and to play it requires a lot of theoretical knowledge. That's why many players prefer to avoid it with moves like 8.d4, 8.a4 or 8.h3 instead of 8.c3. 
     GM Greg Serper wrote that the days when the Marshall Attack was feared are long gone. He added that these days it is a weapon of choice for many 2700-plus GMs looking for a quick draw. Using their computers, they have analyzed the Marshall Attack to an almost forced draw. On the other hand, some players still search for new ideas or even old, forgotten ones. As a result, in OTB play black's attack, which is based on positional considerations rather than tactical ones, can be dangerous. The opening has been analyzed in some positions beyond move 30!! 
     I have used the Marshall only twice in correspondence games, losing one and drawing one. In the game I lost my opponent sent me a message when the game was over saying, "Always happy to play against the Marshall!" I faced it once with white and drew. 
     My ChessBase database shows white wins 28.6 percent, loses 22.8 percent and draws 48.6 percent. The Chess Assistant database percentages give a different picture: +39 -34 =27
     In the article Marshall's analysis was mainly concerned with 18.Re3 and 18.Bd2. He gave the main line as 18.Re3 and gave 18.Bd2 scant attention adding that he was intuitively convinced that it was inadequate.  And that's what I wanted to investigate...how good was Marshall's intuition?
     His mainline was 18.Re3 which Stockfish immediately assigned a losing evaluation. As for 18.Bd2, it was the best and was immediately the top choice, so it appears Marshall's intuition failed him this time. 
     The engines indicate that not only was his intuition wrong (in this case), but his analysis was really not very good either.  Analysis is always a problem with old books and magazine articles because sometimes they were based on results...every move by the winner was praised and the loser was often depicted as a hapless fellow who was badly outclassed. In fact, many times the games were tough struggles where the annotator missed (or just plain ignored) better moves. Also, much of the analysis was superficial due to it being rushed. Few players had the temerity to question a master in those days anyway! Then, of course, they didn't have chess engines that immediately point out hidden tactical resources that it might take a human a long time to discover. Then, too, I wonder if sometimes masters didn't publish faulty opening analysis just to catch an unwary opponent. 
     All GMs warn us not to always trust small pluses and minuses given by engines and human insight for proper evaluation of positions is required.  Naturally, that's the problem for most of us...we lack the ability to correctly assess a position. As Wolff Morrow pointed out in his article referred to in a previous post, it is still possible for a 1500 player to reach a fairly high level in correspondence play IF he is experienced in properly using an engine. When it comes to playing over published games, especially old ones, most of us aren't going to spend hours and hours letting an engine examine a position and doing a lot of interactive analysis. If there is a question about the accuracy of an engine evaluation of a position, then I like to use the Fritz Shootout function which plays out the game at several different plies.  By using this method you can get an idea of the direction the game is headed and by looking at the completed games you can see how the engine produced the results it did.  One word of warning though...I've seen some of these go on for well over a hundred moves and in practical play that leaves a lot of moves where humans can go astray.
    So, here's the results of the analysis of Marshall's article using Stockfish 6, Komodo 8 and Shootouts conducted a several places.
 

Hawaiian Orangutan Attack Reversed

     I have posted about the merits (or lack of merits) of the Hawaiian Orangutan Attack or the Kadas Opening or the Desprez Opening a couple of times, but did you know you can also play it reversed?! This game was fun to play. White played the opening pretty well, but faltered at move 8 by making an exchange that resulted in an unfavorable material imbalance. I thought the ending was strongly in my favor and it was...theoretically at least. Looking at the game with Stockfish revealed, as it usually does, some hidden nuances. If white had found the best moves, things would have gotten very tricky and because I'm not quite as good as Stockfish, I'm pretty sure I would have misplayed the ending and could have possibly lost a "won" game.