The White Snow of Russia

 
This Russian film, for some unfortunately in Russian language, is dedicated to Alexander Alekhine. Despite that fact, the chess players can get a gist anyway....
Alekhine was a chess hero of several generations of chess players, he defected from his country, he might have been collaborating with Nazis.... Whatever. 
But no matter what he had done and why, he still remains in our hearts a fantastic World Chess Champion, who had influenced the game significantly, and he will never ever be forgotten.
The film begins with the sequence when Alexander Alekhine is waiting for Capablanca to play the adjourned game 34 of their match in Buenos Aires, 1927. Instead of Capablanca only a messenger came delivering a letter saying that "Capa" is giving up the game and congratulates to his opponent to the victory in the World Championship match.
Let me remind you this fascinating game which was adjourned in the rook and pawns ending when Alekhine was two pawns up, an "f" and "h" pawns.

Grantham-2 vs Nottingham Central 4:1

Wednesday night, October 24, Grantham Chess Club was the home team in the match with Nottingham Central. Former "Navigation" came to Grantham with their strong line-up. 

Despite the fact that Grantham-2 lost the game on the top board the rest of team did not get the opponents a single chance.

Grantham-2		4:1	Nottingham Central-1
David I	167	0:1	Harrison J	169
Hebert A	-	1:0	Foster S	158
Holt C	148	1:0	Cairney K	95
Palmer T	149	1:0	Patel P	-
Mason B	145	1:0	Kacprzak L	114

Game on the top board is a nice exhibition what can happen if you go into the opponent's favourite position. John Harrison is an experienced player and I have to sadly confess that after ten moves I was strategically completely lost. His plan 9.c5 is interesting and good one. Sadly enough, he played this plan in some game in 2006. If I had known ...

Andy Hebert played again with White pieces and again quite aggressively. An Alapin variation of Sicilian - B22 - was played and Black fianchettoed his dark-squared Bishop.
The only question is whether Andy's move 9.Bxf7 is the best what he could have played, or, the less appealing line 9.Nxe4 d5 had not been better. No matter how good or bad his position was, his opponent  Stephen Foster, simply slipped two moves later... Since that time on Andy did not give him a second chance.




Chris Holt, playing against Ken Cairney, won easily because, as he commented his game himself, "the opponent basically committed a suicide..."

Trevor Palmer, having the luxury of White, he was within a move of delivering his beloved Stonewall Attack, but his opponent stopped that by castling queen-side - as the position suggested he must. Trevor then switched to making queen-side threats but stopped when he saw his opponent had tied himself up. However, his renewed attack down the king-side was limited by it all having to be delivered down the f-file but with half of black's pieces out of the game, it really had to be a win!




Ben Mason won as well and sealed the team victory 4:1.

Newark-1 vs Grantham-1 1:4 !

Tuesday evening, 23rd October, was another night when Grantham 1 team headed for Newark to play a league match.

The team captain's plan was obvious: To avoid defeats on two top boards and to decide the match on the lower boards. That was the plan and our guys made it happen!

Newark-1		1:4	Grantham-1
Combie A	188	½:½	Mangione C	193
Coats D	183	½:½	Birtwistle N	178
Myers B	154	0:1	Payne N	181
Ladds G	147	0:1	Dilley J	183
Harper G	104	0:1	McCarthy K	167

Kevin McCarthy won first! He played against George Harper who was a late replacement and significantly lower rated then Kevin himself. 
Kevin, playing a rather wild Blackmar–Diemer Gambit, managed to win a piece after 8 moves and Grantham was one point up.

Nigel Birtwistle drew in slightly better position. 

Then Nick Payne won with a nice display of tactics. Make an opinion for yourself.

Claudio Mangione played 1.c4 and then the game was transposed into the Fianchetto variation of King's Indian Defence. He was better through all of his game and was close to a win but slipped and allowed his opponent to escape with a draw. 

Jason Dilley was last to finish but confidently ground down his opponent despite not having played for several months.

ChessBase Training DVD's and Downloads | The Week in Chess

IM John Leonard Watson

"After a break John Watson returns with two sets of reviews of downloads and DVD courses. In the first group he looks at 5 ChessBase tutorial videos: 

1. Henrik Danielsen: Pressing Straightaway: The London System 1 d4 d5 2 Bf4 in 60 Minutes; 
2. Dejan Bojkov: Meet the English Opening in 60-minutes; (Download); 
3. Viktor Bologan: English 1 c4 c5 for Black; DVD; 
4. Nigel Davies: English Opening; DVD; and 
5. Wolfgang Uhlmann: Meine Beste Partien; DVD."

Read here.

A New Tactical Monster - Houdini 3 - Has Been Released

Hello to all chess fans and computer chess maniacs! 
Rejoice guys I have very good news for you. New version of Houdini 3 engine is now commercially available! And reportedly it is a new tactical monster.
More details you can find here.
During the testing period three long time control challenges been played. 
Houdini 3 Beta version was tested against contemporary top engines (Houdini 2.0c, Stockfish 2.3.1 and Komodo 5). 
Each match consisted of 120 games at 90 min + 30 sec/move, starting from 60 Noomen opening positions played from both sides.
Over-all result: 

Houdini 3 scored 62% (Perf: +81 Elo ± 24 Elo) against the average of Houdini 2.0c, Komodo 5 and Stockfish 2.3.1.
If you are interested in these matches you can download all games here.The final Houdini 3 Release version is even slightly stronger than the Beta version used in these matches.

Just to give you a flavour, here is one of the games against Stockfish 2.3.1.

Minor Counties League: Lincolnshire vs Worcestershire 12½ : 3½

Lovely sunny afternoon 13th of October led Lincolnshire County Chess Team to Sharnford, a nice town in Leicestershire, to fight with Worcestershire in the first round of Minor Counties League 2012/13.
Match was played in the lovely venue - Sharnford Evergreen Hall - and our team won the toss and then played well.
Match result sheet looks like that:

Midland Counties Chess Union COUNTY MATCH RESULT FORM

Section:  Minor Counties
Home Team: Lincolnshire					Away Team: Worcestershire
Venue:  Sharnford,Leicestershire					Date: 13th October 2012
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	129719D	E197	Andrew Dyce	1	0	Peter Kitson	185	127645B
2	107734B	196	Paul Cumbers	0	1	Pavel Besedin	184	287190H
3	280840H	193	Claudio Mangione	½	½	Kevin Hurney	181	129898H
4	119629H	189	Nick Stead	1	0	Brian Turner	180	120670K
5	247736J	185	Samuel Milson	½	½	Gary Jackson	171	152157D
6	222105G	183	David Coates	1	0	Mark Bethel	169	106679B
7	118511D	180	Joe Kilshaw	1	0	Ed Osbourn	168	282451G
8	216825L	179	Harry Russell	½	½	Charles Higgie	162	129306A
9	106801F	178	Nigel Birtwistle	1	0	John Knee	155	127661L
10	116655E	171	Keith Palmer	1	0	Dave Scriven	153	233503H
11	277271E	167	Ivan David	1	0	Mike Hadley	150	160573C
12	277271G	155	Stuart MacDonald	1	0	Tony Shaw	148	248737J
13	111157H	152	Denis Georgiou	1	0	Stephen Woodhouse	U/G	127046B
14	160353L	149	Geoff Collyer	½	½	Ray Collett	143	108621C
15	113979E	147	Graham Ladds	1	0	Paul Sharratt	136	118792C
16	139887J	145	Ben Mason	½	½	John Chester	132	274837L
				12½	3½

Lincolnshire team captain Nigel Birtwistle was really happy and he expressed his feelings in e-mail circulated after the match by following words:

"Thanks to those who played in today's match.The one sided nature of our victory made the long trek to Sharnford well worthwhile...  
...So we have got off to a great start in our opening fixture but there is not much time to rest on our laurels!..."

And I could not agree more!

In full swing ...

Now I show you some pictures and games just to give you a flavour of the match.
On the top board, a new man in the Lincolnshire team - Andrew Dyce, played an Exchange Variation of Ruy Lopez and he played well and won.

A Passionate Analysis After the Game...

On the board 3, Claudio Mangione drew in 25 moves....



Nick Stead, playing on the board 4 the French Defence, launched a king-side attack and finally brutally sacrificed rook for a mating attack giving Brian Turner no chance to defend his very exposed King.

Denis Georgiou on board 13 won another important point... Board 13, game was played on 13th October... If we had played on Friday 13th I would've been a bit superstitious...




Another point was won on the board 11... I have never realized, how complicated can be to crack the Tarrasch Defence. My lower rated opponent Mike Hadley finally blundered an exchange in difficult but perhaps defendable position...



Team Captain Nigel Birtwistle, playing with White pieces, overplayed his lower rated opponent John Knee, who employed Caro-Kann defence. In Panov-Botvinnick attack Nigel had an upper hand.





In following game played on the board 12, lower rated Tony Shaw went rather wild in rather balanced and equal position and sacrificed an exchange. Objectively, this sacrifice did not give to White an advantage. On the contrary, very precise play was needed to keep an equality. Tony slipped soon and Stuart MacDonald defended himself skilfully and then he delivered the final blow...




Another very important point early in the match gained Graham Ladds on the board 15. Playing White against  Paul Sharratt, he had to face to King's Indian Defence and he managed the position very well.




Ben Mason won another important half-point drawing on the board 16.



...to be continued.