New Year's Eve 2011

It is very common that the last day of year the people want to be funny, merry, and happy. It is also common to tell the stories that never been heard or to remember some "funny" moments which have happened.

Chess is a serious game so what can be so much funny?

I decided to bring some funny moments when former World Champions won the games in less than 20 moves. I hope you will enjoy and we will start with the game of present World Champion Vishy Anand. And the victim was nobody weak - the former Word Champion Vladimir Kramnik!!!!

Our next hero will be another Chess World Champion Garry Kimovich Kasparov, who destroyed his opponent, funnily enough Vishy Anand, in 17 moves!!!! Truth is that this game was played in 1992 so Vishy was not yet that "Vishy The Big" as we all know him nowadays.

Anatoly Karpov checkmated Veselin Topalov in 20 moves! Could you believe it?


















Robert James Fischer had no mercy with one of the best players of 60's and 70's and so Danish chess grandmaster Bent Larsen was forced to resign in 19 moves!




Hope you have enjoyed!

Good luck and plenty of very good games in 2012 !!!!

Andersson - Karpov, Nykopping Rapid, 1995

It is not very often to see a Chess World Champion to give up a game in 18 moves, even though it was a rapid tournament. Even more surprised you can be when you hear that it happened to Anatoly Karpov! Finally, a complete shocker is the fact that the guy who beat Anatoly Karpov in 18 moves was not a player with attacking style like Tal or Shirov but strictly positional player Ulf Andersson famous for his technical style with long-lasting endings where he can show his mastery.

For Karpov it was probably one of those days which is better to forget. Let's have a look what happened. Game is annotated by Alexander Baburin, the opening analysis was done by ChessBase 11.

Puzzle of the day

"All rook and pawn endings are drawn."

Dederle, František

Not in this case!
In this study of František Dederle published in  Časopis Československých Šachistů (The Journal of Czechoslovak Chess Players), 1917

is White to move and wins. Can you see the solution?

Solution

GM Vitaly Tseshkovsky - In Memoriam

Legendary Russian Grandmaster Vitaly Tseshkovsky passed away on 24th December in Krasnodar. He attended the Final of Krasnodar Krai Rapid Cup and became ill during the first round.

Vitaly Valerievich Tseshkovsky 

(September 25, 1944 – December 24, 2011)

(Russian: Виталий Валерьевич Цешковский)  

was a Russian chess Grandmaster and a former champion of the USSR.

Tseshkovsky (Cieszkowski) was born in Omsk into a Polish family (his noble ancestors lived in Volhynia).

He was awarded the International Master title in 1973 and became an International Grandmaster in 1975.

His best tournament victories include first at Leipzig 1975, Dubna 1976, Yerevan 1980, Banja Luka 1981, Sochi 1981 and Minsk 1982. He was co-winner of the 1978 Soviet Championship (with Mikhail Tal) and winner of the 1986 Championship.  
He has beaten some world champions: Vasily Smyslov at the Moscow Spartakiad 1974, Tal at Sochi 1970, and a young Garry Kasparov at the 1978 Soviet Championship. 
Tseshkovsky himself almost qualified for the World Championship candidates matches when he finished fourth in the 1976 Manila Interzonal, one place lower than was needed to progress to the next stage. 
At the 27th Chess Olympiad in 1986, he scored 2½/5 as the second reserve board to help the USSR team win the gold medal.

His 6/9 result in St Petersburg, 2004 qualified him to play in the Russian Championship final later in the year, alongside Russia's seven top players and five other qualifiers. In 2010, he tied for 2nd-4th with Algimantas Butnorius and Nikolai Pushkov in the European Seniors’ Rapid Championship.

Throughout his career, Tseshkovsky has been 1.e4 player. With Black he has played the Ruy Lopez, Sicilian Defence, Pirc and Modern Defence against 1.e4, and against 1.d4 he has most often played the Grünfeld Defence and Benko Gambit.

In the July 2010 FIDE list, Tseshkovsky had an ELO rating of 2564.

He passed away on 24 December 2011.

I would like to present you the mastery of Vitaly Tseshkovsky. 
You will see three of his best games he had ever played (based on the ChessBase 11).

 

R.I.P.

Ruy Lopez, Steinitz Variation, Tarrasch Trap

I remember when I was junior aged about 10, my first chess coach showed us some Russian book the title of which I would translate as "The Chess Openings Traps" ("Ловушки" = The Traps)  and he demonstrated for us the famous Tarrasch trap in Steinitz Variation in Ruy Lopez.
Steinitz Variation comes through some renaissance nowadays so you may be interested to learn this trap.




















As you can see, one of the references is the game Orak (2317) - Grgurevic (2219) played in 2010. Isn't it interesting to see that the player rated 2219 was caught in this trap?

Homage to Václav Havel

    "Truth and love must prevail over lies and hate."

 
Václav Havel 

(5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) 

last Czechoslovak and first Czech president, aged 75, died on December 18, 2011.

Former dissident, playwrite, a passionate supporter of non-violent resistance, a role in which he has been compared, by former US President Bill Clinton, to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., a leading figure in the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the bloodless end to communism in Czechoslovakia, has died.

In 1977, he co-authored the Human Rights charter called Charter '77, which brought him an international recognition as the leader of opposition in Czechoslovakia. Consequently, this led to his persecution by the communist regime, and repeated imprisonment.

He also would play chess and on the picture above you can see Bessel Kok, a Dutch entrepreneur, chess organizer and former  Chairman of World Chess Grandmaster Association from 1985 until 1991, who helped to establish the 2002 Prague Agreement concerning the World Chess Championship, and who was just forced by Václav Havel himself to resign.

A week before his death, Václav Havel was met by his long-time friend, the Dalai Lama, in Prague.

President Havel passed away peacefully on 18 December 2011 at his country home in Vlčice.  

R.I.P.

  

The King, Knight and Pawn against the King and Bishop

Knight and Pawn against Bishop are complicated endings having quite so often a drawish character.

Today I would like to bring you several studies when the King, Knight and Pawn wins over the King and Bishop. In all diagrams is White to move.

Halberstadt V, Československý šach, 1930

Košek V, La Strategie, 1923

Košek V, Československý Šach, 1932

Roikfort,J, Die Schwalbe, 1975

Solutions

Holbergstadt, V 

Československy Šach, 1930

1.Nc6! [1.Na6? Ba7 2.Nb4 Bb8 3.Nc6 Bd6=] 1...Bc7 2.Nd8! Bb8 [2...Bh2 3.Kf5 Kf8 4.Ne6+ Ke8 5.Nf4+-] 3.Kf5 Kf8 4.Nc6! [4.Ke6? Ke8 5.Nc6 Bc7=] 4...Bc7 5.Kf6! Ke8 6.Ke6 Kf8 7.Kd7 Bh2 8.Nb4 Bb8 9.Kc8 Be5 10.Nd5 Bg3 11.Nc7 1-0

Košek,V
La Strategie, 1923

1.Nf5! [1.Ng6? Ba8 2.Ne5+ Kb5!=;

1.Nf3? Bc8=] 1...Ba8 2.Nd4+ Kc5 3.Ne6+ Kc6 4.Nc7 Bb7 5.Nd5! Kxd5 [5...Ba6 6.Nb4++-] 6.Kxb7 1-0

Košek,V

Československy Šach, 1932

1.Ne5! [1.Nc5? Bh3=;

1.Nb4? Kd7 2.Nd3 Kc6 3.Ka7 Kb5 4.Ne5 Kc5 5.Nf7 Kc6 6.Nd8+ Kd6=] 1...Ba6 [1...Bh3 2.Nc6+ Kd7 3.b7 Bg2 (3...Kxc6 4.Ka7) 4.Ka7+-] 2.Ka7 Bc8 3.Ka8! Ba6 [3...Ke8 4.Kb8 Kd8 5.Nc6+ Kd7 6.Ne7 Ba6 7.Ka7+-] 4.Kb8 Bc8 5.Nf7+ Kd7 6.Nd6 Ba6 7.Ka7 1-0

Roikfort,J
Die Schwalbe, 1975

1.Kh7! [1.g7? Kh6 2.g8Q Bf6+=] 1...Kf6 [1...Kf5 2.g7] 2.g7 1-0

Merry Christmas

Hořovice, Czech Republic, 21/12/2011

Dear chess friends,
I would like to thank you for visiting this website, which ambition is to bring you quickly the news from the chess life mainly in the Grantham, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. 

Let me wish you Merry Christmas and all the best in the year to come. I am looking forward to welcoming you here in next year again, hoping that you will enjoy these websites as much as I do when preparing them.

Ivan David

Leicestershire - Lincolnshire Reminiscence

Paul Cumbers is reigning Lincolnshire County chess champion in 2011. Despite the fact that he moved to Sheffield he keeps supporting Lincolnshire County Team. In recent match against Leicestershire he played with White pieces against Ray Burgess and he played really well.
It is great pleasure to publish his miniature game annotated by Paul himself. It is hardly to believe that in an opening like the Exchange Variation of Queens Gambit Decline is, Black was forced to resign in 26 moves! Do enjoy the game.

Lincoln Beat Grantham in Lincolnshire League U160

Lincoln		2½ - 1½	Grantham
Collyer G	(152)	1 - 0	Wollerton G	(147)
Sherlock P	(134)	0 - 1	Mason B	(145)
Kok H		1 - 0	Cumbers C	(105)
Bull D	(125)	½ - ½	Grummitt W	(104)

The English Opening versus King's Indian Defence

King's Indian Defence (KID) is still one of by far the most popular defences against 1.d4, 1.c4 or even 1.Nf3. Playing against King's Indian defence requires huge knowledge of opening theory. Since the time when players like Fischer, Geller, Gligoric, Korchnoi, Petrosian and the others pioneered this defence long time has passed and new advances, new strategical ideas were found. So if you are really interested in that defence you have to buy very good book for first, and for second, you have to study a lot which is process rather time consuming.
There are many ways how to meet this defence in Anti-KID fashion. Some players like a Torre attack or a London style approach with Bf4 or Bg5, some like the Réti structure which can lead by transformation to English opening or the other structures. Following two games are from ICCF 1st British WS Tournament. It is the English opening against KID. Hope you will enjoy the games

 

Long Eaton pulverised Grantham 2

Long Eaton was relegated from Division 1 last year. This ambitious team is very strong and wants back to Division 1. So far they are leaders of the Division 2 and yesterday came to Grantham who was on the second place of the leaderboard. Grantham team was outgraded on most of boards and lost 0.5 : 4.5.

Grantham-2		½:4½	Long Eaton
David I	165	0:1	Evans R	200
Palmer T	153	0:1	Robins A	158
Mason B	145	0:1	Williams D	157
Holt C	145	½:½	Davies N	143
Cumbers C	105	0:1	Murphy R	131

On the top board, Raymond Evans, rated 200 ECF, playing with White pieces crushed me in Smyslov-Petrosian line of Caro-Kann. We have followed the theory and at move 13 I deviated from theory by rather passive move which gave to my opponent small but long term edge and finally I made positional mistake leading to the catastrophe.

Trevor Palmer on the second board played very and when both players reached the time control he had very promising position. He had at least chance to draw by repetition if had wanted to. He decided to continue his attack, in some point he had achieved a won position but in time trouble he did not find the best line and after he had made mistake enabled his opponent, Andrew Robins, massive mating attack on the king-side.

Ben Mason playing with Black pieces was overplayed with David Williams in Knight and Pawns ending.

Chris Cumbers lost to Ross Murphy and the only person who were able to resist and saved for Grantham half a point at least was Chris Holt playing with White pieces against Norman Davies.

Just to give you flavour of match, let's have a look at the game Palmer-Robins. Trevor kindly annotated the game and I added some lines and remarks as well.

Interesting game wasn't it?

Kasparov,Garry (2812) - Vachier Lagrave,Maxime (2715) Kasparov in Clichy, Blitz Game, 2011

Kasparov, G - Vachier Lagrave, M 2011 

"It is not common to analyze the blitz game ending" says Karsten Müller, "however, if it is played by Garry Kasparov we can do some exception." And indeed, the diagram position is quite interesting.

In the game was played:

48.e6 d2 49.e7 d1Q+ 50.Nxd1 Rxd1 51.h6!?

[51.g6 hxg6 52.h6+-; 51.exd8Q+ Rxd8 52.Rxd8+ Kxd8 53.Ke4 Kd7 54.Kd5 b6 55.a3 b5 56.Kc5 Kc7 57.g6+-]

51...Rd6 52.Kg2 Rd2+ 53.Kf3 Rd6 54.Ke2 Re6+ 55.Kd3 Rd6+

[55...Rxe7 56.fxe7 Kxe7 57.Rb8 b5 58.Rb7+ Ke6 59.g6 fxg6 60.Rxh7 Bf6 61.Ra7+-]

56.Ke4 b5 57.g6!? fxg6

[57...hxg6 58.h7+-]

58.exd8Q+ Rxd8 59.f7+

[59.f7+ Ke7 (59...Kxf7 60.Rxd8+-) 60.Rxd8 Kxd8 61.f8Q++-] 

1-0

Was the move 48.e6 the best continuation in the diagram position? What would you play? You can check you solution in the section Practical Endings.

Leicestershire 8.5 - 7.5 Lincolnshire

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."     Winston Churchill

It has not been very nice afternoon for Lincolnshire. And if I were asked to describe this match by a single and simple sentence I would choose the famous phrase "Blood, toil, tears and sweat" which was first uttered on 2 July 1849 by Giuseppe Garibaldi when rallying his revolutionary forces in Rome and popularized by Winston Churchill during WWII.
As it became a tradition, the matches with Leicestershire are always very tough and very close. Yesterday's match was not an exception.

Midland Counties Chess Union COUNTY MATCH RESULT FORM

Section: Minor Counties
Home Team: Leicestershire					Away Team: Lincolnshire
Venue:  Thurmaston					Date:  3rd December 2011
Team having white on odd boards:  Lincolnshire					Result reported by:  Nigel Birtwistle
Board	ECF Code	Grade	Home team players’ names	Score	Score	Away Team players’ names	Grade	ECF Code
1	283501B	207	Ilyan Mladenov	½	½	Nigel Birtwistle	192	106801F
2	125697L	200	Martin Burrows	1	0	Claudio Mangione	192	280840H
3	107674H	182	Ray Burgess	0	1	Paul Cumbers	190	103734B
4	109613J	174	John Denton	1	0	Nick Stead	187	119629H
5	118096E	169	John Robinson	½	½	Nick Payne	184	152255D
6		173E	Brian Galligan	½	½	Daniel Wells	183	231112E
7	115634C	173	John Mitchell	½	½	Keith Palmer	177	116655E
8	118421A	167	Mike Salisbury	0	1	Harry Russell	175	216825L
9	117844B	165	Tom Reynolds	0	1	Joe Kilshaw	171	158511D
10	163691B	163	Richard Vann	1	0	Denis Georgiou	169	111157H
11	213110K	168	David Farrall	0	1	Steven Prior	169	263507A
12	259469K	167	Greg Eagleton	1	0	Ivan David	164	277281E
13	279527K	164	Alfonso Jimenez	1	0	Alastair Summers	158	270555C
14	115247G	159	Patrick McDermott	½	½	Geoff Collyer	152	160353L
15	106748F	161	Jim Bingham	½	½	Graham Ladds	149	113979E
16	112575J	157	Sean Hewitt	½	½	Steve Allott	-	152031D
				8½	7½

I lost my game Greg Eagleton after tough battle with many mistakes on both sides. My opponent played 1.d4 which was met by 1...d5 and after 2.Nf3 c6 he opted for The London System set-up 3.Bf4. The game went by the book till move 7 when I employed certain novelty 7...Ne4. This move was very unambitious and the main idea was to exchange several minor pieces and ease the defence. Very quickly we went into the position with so called "little center" where Black is solid, but cramped. I defended my position solidly until the move 25...g6 where I made positional mistake weakening the position of my King. I was put under the pressure, but my opponent was reluctant to sacrifice exchange for attack which gave me some chance for draw. However, I decided to go for ending eventually which was good idea but I opted for wrong move order. I lost the pawn a despite that I tried as I might finally I blundered in worse position.