dana blogs chess

Today Alexey Root, in her blog on the MonRoi website, addressed the question I asked in my last post: should I should be satisfied with offering a non-rated tournament for the kids in my library chess club, or should I should try to get them into rated chess? I think that the three things I take away from her post are: 1) I’m not the only person to ask this question; 2) different clubs may have different goals; 3) it helps to have a plan. She didn’t specifically state point #3, but when I compared her relatively structured approach to my rather haphazard approach, it’s a conclusion that I reached myself. I should really think about what kind of experience I want the kids to have and then take action accordingly.

Two entries ago, I mentioned a new series of lectures I was going to record for ChessLecture, but kept secret what they were going to be about. As subscribers now know, they are about ”The Lighter Side” of chess. Specifically, the first lecture was on quadrupled pawns, a formation that barely even seems possible in a serious and well-played chess game. I looked at what I called “The Immortal Quadrupled Pawn Game,” between François Léveillé and Jay Bonin. The second lecture was on some of the chess curiosities at Tim Krabbé’s website, which I have mentioned here before.

I was curious to see how people would react to these lectures. Although I love ChessLecture, it does seem to me at times that the site takes itself a little bit too seriously. Would the listeners agree? It’s their money, after all. If they’ve paid for the best chess lectures on the Web, maybe they will be offended by a lecture on quadrupled pawns, which (one hopes) will never actually appear in any of their games.

The other thing I wasn’t sure of was whether I could really do chess humor. I decided that the best way to do these lectures was absolutely straight. Just talk about the game in my normal manner, and let the absurdity of the positions speak for itself.

I made one discovery I hadn’t fully expected, which was that one can actually learn something from these games. They were played by strong players, after all, and they didn’t just wake up that morning and decide to mess around and give themselves quadrupled pawns. I think the most appealing examples are the ones where the chess humor manifests itself in an organic way, as a natural result of the position. The humor is not that so-and-so did something stupid, but that the game of chess itself is so rich that (occasionally) things happen on the chessboard that you would never have dreamed were possible.

The comments on the first lecture were quite positive. But the first listener comment on the second lecture was pretty harsh — he says that he did not like the “Lighter Side” series and wanted it removed from the site! Wow! Fortunately, someone else spoke up in my defense right after that. Actually, I think that the first listener’s comment came from exactly the sort of mindset that bothered me in the first place: the sense that every lecture on this site Must Be Instructive, and even more particularly, that if a lecture doesn’t cover My Particular Opening than I can’t possibly learn anything from it.

As we would say in Santa Cruz, relax! Chill out! Sometimes a little humor will open your mind so that it is receptive to new things.

I do have a couple more ideas in mind for the “Lighter Side” series, but I probably won’t do them for another couple months, because I think it’s time to get back to the “Tactical Motifs” series. I’ll give readers of this blog a special hint: I would like to do lectures on desperado sacrifices and on removal of the guard. Do you have favorite examples of either of these motifs that you would like me to show?

My last update for today is on the U.S. Championship. The final round is going on right now, and I am “watching” it on www.monroi.com.  Yuri Shulman has already won the U.S. Championship, by drawing his last-round game against Josh Friedel. Friedel wasn’t too upset about that, because the draw gave him his third grandmaster norm. This was just about the most certain draw imaginable, given that both players had such a big stake in it.

Of the ChessLecturers, Eugene Perelshteyn is doing the best: he entered the last round with 5 points out of 8, and he has a very promising position against Kudrin. He has “Alekhine’s gun” — both rooks and his queen — on the f-file, bearing down on Kudrin’s pawn on f3 (Kudrin is White), with serious chances to play … e5-e4 soon, building the pressure on f3. Kudrin can’t capture because of mate on f1.

Jesse Kraai, who enters the last round with 4 points out of 8, has a rather unpleasant position against Alexander Ivanov. He has four isolated pawns and a bad bishop, and Ivanov has two knights in a position that looks ideal for knights. My fearless prediction is that Perelshteyn will win and Kraai will lose. As for Vigorito, he has already drawn with Yermolinsky to finish with 4 points out of 9. I think he is probably pretty happy with that result.

Of the Bay Area players, Friedel has already passed the finish line with 5.5 points. Shankland lost in the last round to finish with 2.5. I’m sure he hoped for better, but as the second-lowest rated player in the field, it was a tall order for him. David Pruess has 3.5 points and looks as if he’s in big trouble — three pawns down and struggling even to win one of the pawns back.

Looking bad for Jesse. He’s about to lose the exchange. Resignation soon?

Hmm… Not so good for Perelshteyn either. Kudrin has closed the center and taken a pawn on a5. Now Perelshteyn’s attack has to work or else.

Looks like a draw coming up in Kudrin-Perelshteyn. They’ve traded into a bishops of opposite colors endgame where Kudrin is a pawn up, but I’m guessing Perelshteyn can hold. Jesse played a desperado rook sac and the position is messy, but I think Ivanov can shut it down, unless his time trouble gets too bad.

Final results: Perelshteyn drew, Kraai lost, Pruess miraculously pulled out a draw. In the women’s tournament, there was a tie between Zatonskih and Krush, and Zatonskih won in an Armageddon playoff. As you all know, I think that Armageddon is no way to decide a national championship.

Share This

… Organize a tournament!

As I’ve mentioned before, I run a chess club for kids at the Aptos Public Library (new link coming soon). Every year in May, as kind of a culmination to the school year, I run a very informal, unrated tournament. Usually I split it into two sections by age; this year we had a section for ages 9 and under (with seven players) and for ages 10 and up (with twelve players).

I owe big thanks to Ruben Sombrano, who brought seven kids up from his class in Watsonville. They all played in the older section and did quite well, winning first and a second-place tie. If they hadn’t come, it would have been a pretty weak turnout.

One reason the number of players was lower than usual, I believe, is that the children’s librarian, Nancy Call, usually phones every player’s parents the week before the tournament to remind them about it. Unfortunately, Nancy is away on a long holiday, and I just didn’t have the time this week to make the phone calls. So four or five players who signed up a long time ago didn’t show up, perhaps because they just forgot about it.

Anyway, that was the only disappointment today. The great thing was to see some of the games the kids played. There’s something about the seriousness of a tournament that makes them pay attention a bit more or something. I saw forks and pins played by kids who don’t usually see forks and pins. I saw some hard-fought theoretical endings. How about king and two bishops versus king? How about king, queen and bishop versus king and queen? We had both of those today. (The first one was drawn by the 50-move rule. The second won was won by the K+Q+B, who figured out a nice way to skewer his opponent’s king and queen.)

One of the great things about this tournament is that it’s absolutely free. The library wouldn’t host it any other way. But we do offer prizes — certificates and medals to the top three in each group, and certificates to every kid who completes all three games. Usually the prizes come from the library’s activities budget, but Nancy has sometimes paid for them out of her own pocket when the library’s budget was too tight.

Of course the tournament is not rated. I am so in awe of people who run academic chess programs that get kids into rated tournaments, and even more in awe of teachers who can get a 10-year-old to play at 1400, 1600, 1800 strength. I’d love to know how they do it! My kids are all probably below 1000 strength. They don’t all know how to keep score, although I’ve tried to work on that a bit this year, so some of them probably can. I think that most of them are not even aware that rated tournaments exist, or understand what a rating is.

Should I be happy with running the one tournament a year and seeing the kids have a good time? Should I aim higher? Should I steer them into rated tournament chess, and if so, how? I’d appreciate your feedback!

Today’s winners were:

Under-10 section:

1. Ian Chiu (3/3); 2-3. Jack Scott, Matthew Founds (2/3); Special Sportsmanship Award — Theo Mickey (2/3)

Theo got the special award because he was in a three-way tie for second with Jack and Matthew. We had a round-robin playoff between the three of them, using a clock and a game in 10 minutes time control. Theo had never used a chess clock before in his life. I felt that he deserved some recognition for coping with a new situation and doing it without complaint. I think he had fun, even though he lost the playoff.

10-and-over section:

1. Alvaro Zamora (2.5/3, won playoff); 2-3. Karen Chan (2.5/3), Oscar Gonzalez (2.5/3).

We ended up with a three-way tie in this section because Karen gave up a stalemate in a round-two game where she was ahead by two queens and a rook, and Alvaro and Oscar, who were the only kids with 2 points in the first 2 rounds, played to a draw in the last round. This was the game that went to K + 2B vs. K. Oscar had the two bishops, but he didn’t know how to win. In the playoff, though, Alvaro beat both of his rivals. I deemed it unnecessary to break the tie between Karen and Oscar.

Alvaro had an interesting day. He plays for a checkmate on f2 or f7 in every opening, and amazingly, both of his first two opponents, as White, allowed it! So he won his first two games in a total of about twelve moves! However, his long endgame struggle against Oscar more than made up for the two short games. Karen has improved a lot; I think that last year she got only half a point in three games, but this year she could easily have gone three-for-three.

And now we return you to so-called more “important” tournaments, such as the U.S. Championship …

Share This

At the U.S. Championship, that is. And the answer is: Of course! As a fan, I’ve got to root for the “home team.” And where I’m concerned, there are two home teams:

San Francisco area residents:

• Josh Friedel 2.5/4
• David Pruess 2/4
• Sam Shankland 2/4

ChessLecture.com lecturers:

• Jesse Kraai 2/4
• Eugene Perelshteyn 2/4
• David Vigorito 1.5/4

So no one is really doing fabulously, but no one is getting blown out of the water, either. The leader of the tournament so far is Sergei Kudrin (3.5/4).

Josh Friedel had a wonderful attacking victory over Boris Gulko (you can play it through at the bottom of this post), and that’s really saying something. He sacked the exchange and then just kept on making threats and putting pieces en prise, both at the same time. I couldn’t tell what was going on, but he made it work somehow. This could be  a sign that he’s in really good form.

David Pruess had a really nice win in round three against Dean Ippolito (also at the bottom of this post), in which David played the King’s Gambit! Wooo hooo! Not only that, David made up a new move on the fourth move of the King’s Gambit Declined. You can bet I’m going to look at this game very closely, because it’s something I might want to try out myself.

You just mark my words, someday, SOMEDAY, the King’s Gambit will come back into style, when people get tired of banging their heads against Petrov Defenses and Berlin Variations of the Ruy Lopez.

I was wondering why Jesse Kraai was having such a ho-hum start — four games, four draws. For the winner of the U.S. Championship Qualifier, I had slightly higher hopes. But then I looked at who he has been matched up against: Onischuk (the highest-rated player in the tournament), Akobian, Finegold, Shabalov. Which of these four was he supposed to beat? Even though Jesse is a GM, every one of these players has him outrated. That kind of brings home the point that there are no easy games in this crowd.

With three of the regular ChessLecturers playing in the U.S. Championship, the management has asked me to record a couple of extra lectures to fill in for them. I’m going to record the lectures on Monday, and I think you’ll find them to be lots of fun. (I would guess that they will probably air Tuesday and Wednesday.) I’m using the opportunity to start a new series that’s a little different from what I’ve done before. Ssshhhh… No spoilers…

Now, if you scroll down a little ways, you can play over the two games by Friedel and Pruess that I mentioned above. 

.
.
.
Extra space inserted deliberately to create room for chess diagrams
.
.
.
More extra space inserted to create room for the diagrams
.
.
.
I love technology, but why can’t it do what I want?
.
.
.
Like resize the darned diagrams
.
.
.
Anyway, this ought to be enough space
.
.
.
Or not
.
.
.
Okay! Here we go!
.
.
.

Here are the games by Friedel and Pruess that I mentioned above, courtesy of MonRoi.com. First Friedel’s assault on Mount Gulko:

And now Pruess shows why a Bishop on b3 plus a Rook on the f-file spell trouble for Black in the King’s Gambit:

Share This

Yesterday I played against Dan Burkhard in my second playoff game for the Santa Cruz Cup, and I lost again. This eliminates me from contention for first place, and ends my three-year winning streak. It feels like karma. Over the last three years I had lots of good breaks. But this year, I kept getting one great position after another and somehow finding ways to lose them.

I can’t say that the loss yesterday upset me too much — definitely not the way that my loss to Juande last week did (see A Visit From the Dementors). In fact, I was almost happy. It’s so rare for me to simply lose a chess game — almost all my losses either come because of terrible blunders that don’t teach me anything, or else they come wrapped up in the package of psychodrama known as time trouble (like my game with Juande). There’s always an excuse. But in the game with Dan, there were no ridiculous blunders, no psychodrama, and no excuses. I was way ahead on time, and I had a superior position. I just chose a bad plan. Which means that this is actually a game I can learn something from.

I’ll show you two positions from the game. The first is on my seventeenth move. I’m Black, and things are clearly going well for me. (Dan had missed some chances earlier in the game, but I’m going to skip that part.)

Here let’s try a Jesse Kraai-style evaluation of the position. What is the nature of Black’s advantage? The first thing that I would notice is the two bishops, and in particular the unopposed dark-squared bishop. This is clearly a long-term advantage for Black, assuming he can keep a diagonal open for that bishop. Second, I would notice White’s bad bishop, which has nothing to do. If Black could just trade off the heavy pieces and enter a minor-piece endgame, he would have very good chances to win. Third, I would notice the lineup of Black’s queen and White’s king on the same diagonal. This is a temporary situation, but it creates possibilities for tactics after 17. … f5, when the e-pawn cannot take on f5 because of 18. … e4+.

These are the good points for Black. What are the bad points? Let’s start with the undefended pawn on g6. If Black isn’t careful, White might be able to exploit that with a quick f2-f4, followed by e4-e5, blowing open the center and exposing Black’s king to Qd3xg6+. Second, Black’s rooks aren’t doing anything. They clearly need to be brought into the game. And third, Black needs to resolve the question of where his king should go. Should he castle queenside? Castle kingside? Stay in the center?

I chose the move 17. … Rd8, a poor choice on several counts. First, the king is not safe in the center, as long as that g6 pawn remains a target. Both Dan and I missed the idea of 18. f4 and 19. e5, which the computer recommends. But even if we don’t see that tricky tactic, there is another very important reason for castling, which is that Black needs to connect his rooks. It’s the last step of development, and it cannot be ignored. I was still too attached to the idea that I was somehow going to get a kingside attack with my rook on the h-file, but let’s face it. That file is securely blocked for the time being. That rook can do much better things on the f-file or the d-file or even the b-file.

I was reluctant to castle queenside, and I think rightly so. That would give White some attacking chances against my king. But why not castle kingside? Then I can bring both of my rooks over to the queenside, where I am essentially a piece up because White’s bishop can’t get there, and work on the pawn break … b5. So 17. … O-O would be a very good, sensible move.

Also, 17. … f5 needs to be considered very carefully. I finally decided not to play it because I didn’t see a good followup after 18. f3. If Black takes either pawn, then he is just opening the f-file for White. If Black pushes on to f4, he blocks his own bishop and negates the advantage of the two bishops. But what I failed to appreciate properly is that Black can just keep the tension – maintain the pawn on f5 and build his kingside attack. After 17. … f5 18. f3 O-O-O is now appropriate. Yes, it’s going to be double-edged, but I think that the interpolation of … f5 and f3 has improved Black’s prospects. He is basically guaranteed now that he can open up lines on the kingside whenever he wants, with … fg. He is now prepared to contest the f-file with … Rdf8. And a key point is that White was forced into the passive, defensive move f3, and thus has not been allowed to play his most dangerous pawn break, f2-f4.

So the bottom line is: for a safe and sound position, 17. … O-O was best. For a dynamic position with excellent attacking chances, 17. … f5 was best, followed by 18. … O-O-O. But just leaving the king in the center, uncastled, was a very foolish idea. Unfortunately, I am far too easily seduced by exotic ideas like this.

Let’s now move ahead five moves. The game continued 17. … Rd8?! 18. f3?! (better was f4!) 18. … a6 19. a4 Qa5 20. Nc3 Bf4+ 21. Kg1 Bc8 22. Ne2, arriving at this position.

Here I made a second very intriguing mistake. My thinking was: the whole idea of … Qa5 was to try to bring my queen to d2, and now White is letting me do it! Hip hip hooray! If 22. … Qd2 23. Qxd2 Bxd2, Black is getting closer to that superior endgame I mentioned before. If 22. … Qd2 23. Nxf4 Qxf4, Black has amazingly transferred his queen from a5 to f4 in just two moves, and now he can turn his attention back to the kingside attack. Woo hoo! What could possibly go wrong?

In my excitement I was completely blind to two features of the position, one subtle and one obvious. The obvious problem is that I have left my c-pawn unguarded, and moreover I have maneuvered my pieces into positions (rook on d8, bishop on c8) where they cannot protect it. Always think about unprotected pieces and pawns! As “notyetagm” says on www.chessgames.com, LPDO. (Loose Pieces Drop Off.)

The less obvious problem is that Black isn’t really ready to attack yet on the kingside. If I could just play … f5, take-take and sac on g4, I would be happy. I would even be glad to sacrifice the c5 pawn. But the trouble is that just as before, exchanging pawns on g4 only opens up the f-file, where the rook will be bearing down on Black’s queen — and after that, will imprison Black’s uncastled king! Now Black is really paying for all of the poor decisions made over the last few moves.

The startling conclusion is that Black’s queen on f4 is actually a completely useless piece! She isn’t able to do anything meaningful on the kingside, because she just becomes a target. And she isn’t able to get back over to the queenside to defend the c-pawn. Ironic, isn’t it, that after her mind-bogglingly quick trip from a5 to f4, she can’t get back?

So I played 22. … Qd2?, a very instructive mistake, and Dan correctly continued 23. Nxf4 Qxf4. Now he could have played 24. Qa3 right away, but he decided to play 24. a5 first. I remained oblivious to the danger, and played 24. … Qg3? This threatens 25. … Bxg4, but after Dan’s 25. Qa3! that threat was completely moot. The game ended quickly: 25. … f5 26. Qxc5 fg 27. fg Bxg4? (loses tactically, but on anything else Black is a pawn down and White has the compensation!) 28. Ra3! and Black can resign. (I actually played on for four more moves.)

Probably the best move for me would have been 22. … g5 =. I did not want to play this move because it basically ends any possibility of kingside attack. Also, after 23. Nxf4 gf the h-pawn is potentially weak. But I just had to be very honest and objective, and realize that Black no longer has an advantage in this position. If Black retreats the bishop, White is finally going to get to play f4, and will have counterplay.

All in all, this was an interesting game because it was entirely decided at a strategic level. The small burst of tactics at the end came only after the position was already lost. The strategic mistakes were very instructive, to me at least. My wife also was glad to hear that I had not beaten myself in my usual way, getting into time trouble and panicking, and she suggests that this is actually the first step toward solving my problems. I hope so. We’ll see. The downside is that losing can be habit-forming, so I would really like to break this slump.

Share This

Today I will continue the ambling through my chess past that I began with this entry about the Richmond (VA) chess club in the 1970s and that entry about the U.S. Junior Open in 1974. But first, let me mention, for anyone who likes this kind of stuff, you should also definitely check out Mark Ginsburg’s blog, A Personal Chess History. He has tons of entertaining stories (and lots of hilarious photographs!) about well-known chess personalities and events from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Unlike me, Ginsburg knows everybody who is anybody in the U.S. chess scene.

It turns out that he was also at the U.S. Junior Open in 1974, and mentions it briefly in two entries, here and here. For all I know, we even played Frisbee together. Like me, he writes about what Yasser Seirawan was like back then, and adds some other minor details that I had no memory of, such as who won the tournament!

But let’s move on to another place and era in my life: the 1980s, and North Carolina. In 1983, I staggered to the finish of my graduate studies at Princeton University. They somehow let me out of New Jersey with a paper saying that I had a Ph.D., and I got my first teaching job at Duke University, in Durham.

Duke had some very strong players in the mid-1980s, but the real center of chess in the Triangle (this refers to three cities — Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill — that are separated by only a few miles) was Raleigh. The Raleigh chess club met every Friday night, at a recreation center in Kiwanis Park. I’m glad to see that the club is still going, and still in the same place! 

Raleigh was also where we had the monthly “Phi Kappa Blanca” tournaments, which were organized by Robert Singletary. This may have been the longest-running series of tournaments anywhere in the United States: they went all the way up to Phi Kappa Blanca CIX (that’s 109, for people who don’t do Roman numerals) before they ended in 2002. They began in 1983, inspired by the “Phi Slamma Jamma” nickname of the University of Houston basketball team that year. I don’t know why they ended, but I can only guess that Robert got too busy directing tournaments at the national level, and didn’t have time for these local tournaments any more. (I would welcome more information from anyone who knows.)

With his red hair and freckles, Robert was easy to spot in a crowd, but as a person he was very selfless, calm and reasonable, and did not draw attention to himself. That made him a perfect tournament director and organizer. He was certainly a unique figure in North Carolina chess, and maybe even national chess. Young chess-playing prodigies are a dime a dozen, but can you name anyone else who was a tournament-directing prodigy? I didn’t think so. Although he was a player of modest ability (perhaps 1600-strength), he had a greater impact on North Carolina chess than any master. I don’t know anyone who ever had a bad thing to say about him.

The mainstays of the Raleigh chess club at that time were a strong group of experts. They were great competition for me, because I was an expert, too. Bernie Schmidt, an English teacher, was perhaps the most colorful of them, the sort of person who was willing to talk about anything — not just chess. He had a hard-fighting chess style; I would compare him to Lasker or Korchnoi in the sense that he didn’t necessarily have the best theoretical knowledge, but in any position he would find the moves that would make it a hard battle. He never managed to get his rating to master level, but you always knew when you played him that it would be a good game.

The strongest player in the club (although he didn’t come very often) was Greg Samsa, a 2300-ish player who probably could have been a lot better. Style-wise, I would compare him to Capablanca; he had a very smooth and effortless approach to chess. One time I asked him how he could play so fast, and he said, “Chess is a very simple game. There’s just not that much to think about.” Unfortunately, Greg almost never played in tournaments outside the Triangle area; he said that his wife kept him on a short leash.

Greg had a subtle but barbed sense of humor, which expressed itself most in the nicknames he gave to people. Steve Tarin, another master, was “The Macrodont” because of his large teeth. Jack Berry was “Jack the Expert.” I don’t know why this nickname was so peculiarly appropriate for Jack, but it was. It somehow captured Jack’s vanity, and the fact that he lusted after being a master but seemed condemned to eternal life as an expert. (Actually, Jack did eventually make it to 2200 for a while, after I left North Carolina, but I don’t know if he ever shed the nickname “Jack the Expert.”)

The other most appropriate nickname was Alan Patrick’s. Everyone called him “Alpo,” a name he must have hated, but it fit him perfectly. First, it was such a nice, easy contraction of his name. And second, he was kind of chubby and beefy. Just like, well, a can of Alpo dog food. Sorry! But actually, Alpo was a great, easy-going guy. He eventually made it to master, just barely: His peak rating was 2203, and he only stayed above 2200 for one tournament! Still, that’s good enough to get a certificate. Alan was also a state co-champion in 2003.

Probably the player I liked best, both personality-wise and also because our chess styles were quite similar, was Robin Cunningham. He graduated from high school in Raleigh and went to the University of North Carolina. I kept in touch with him for a long time after both of us left North Carolina. For a while he worked for the Educational Testing Service, and then he became an actuary. He has written a textbook on actuarial science, so he is a published author, too!

Robin now lives in California, not too far from me. His peak rating was 2432, but he is now retired from tournament chess, having succumbed to the lure of poker instead. However, I did manage to drag him out of retirement in 2006. I was forming a team for the (short-lived) Bay Area Chess League, called “Eight is Enough,” which aside from Robin consisted entirely of Santa Cruz players. We didn’t have anyone in Santa Cruz who was really good enough to compete on first board, so I asked Robin if he could be our ringer. Actually, given his long absence from chess, he felt more like a sacrificial victim — he said that his main role would be to keep the first-board chair warm while the other three people on the team won the match. He played three games for us, losing one and drawing two, but one of those two draws was the biggest game of the whole season. In the championship playoff, we had to win because the other team was ahead of us on tiebreaks. We got ahead 2-1, but Robin was in a life-and-death struggle on board one. I thought he was going to lose, but in a pawn-down minor-piece endgame he pulled out a miraculous save. Thanks to that game we won the match, 2.5-1.5, and took the league title. He said, “I was never so glad to draw a game in my life!”

Incidentally, Robin had a history with team tournaments. If you look at Mark Ginsburg’s list of winners of the U.S. Amateur Team Championship — East, you’ll see the team “Walk Your Dog” listed for 1987. Even though Duke and UNC are archrivals in sports, this team was a joint Duke — UNC effort. The two top boards, Michael Feinstein and Bill Mason, were students at Duke, and the third board, Robin, was at UNC. I have to admit that I don’t know where the fourth board, David Greenstein, came from.

Unlike many USATE winners, ”Walk Your Dog” was a balanced team; everybody’s ratings were between 2000 and 2400. There was a big controversy this year when a “stacked” team subverted the rules by fielding three grandmasters and a five-year-old whose rating was 100-something. (Elizabeth Vicary’s blog entry just barely mentioned this issue, but drew 189 comments (!), some of them quite impassioned.) Well, there were stacked teams back in 1987, too, and “Walk Your Dog” took particular pleasure in beating all of them. A second “Walk Your Dog” team, still with Feinstein and Mason on the top two boards (although by this time both had graduated from Duke), won the USATE in 1990.

Michael Feinstein, by the way, remains very active in chess, coaching one of the nation’s best scholastic chess teams in Austin, Texas. Elizabeth Vicary mentions him in this blog entry, where she says that he was her first chess teacher! That would have been when Michael was a student at Duke, and Elizabeth was still in high school.

I went to the World Open one time with Michael, and I can report that he had one interesting superstition. He had a pair of rather ugly green pants that were his “lucky pants,” and which he wore on the last day of any big tournament. I wonder if he still has them? Does he wear them when his chess team has a big match? Inquiring minds want to know.

Speaking of Elizabeth, she was also a product of the Triangle chess scene. I’m very proud of her. I would never have guessed that she would become so well known nationally, would write great articles for U.S. Chess Online, would have one of the most popular chess blogs, would coach prize-winning chess teams from Brooklyn and would be profiled at length in a book, Michael Weinreb’s The Kings of New York. Back in the 1980s, she was just a goofy but extremely smart high-school girl. One year I taught her in a math class at Duke’s Talent Identification Program (TIP), a summer program for gifted and talented students. I guess I should have known she would go on to do great things, because even in a class full of overachievers, she overachieved the most. I had to make up extra assignments in the last week for her and one or two other kids, because they had finished the syllabus. It was the first time I had ever needed to do that in my TIP course.

The only dirt I can dish on Elizabeth is that she wasn’t always the pencil-thin person you see in the photographs today. As a teenager she still had normal amounts of what some people might call “baby fat.” I can only speculate that at some point the Body Image Police got inside her head. Perhaps this is part of what she calls in her blog “the surpassing weirdness of being a female in our society.” Anyway, this is a small matter; if she is happy with her appearance now, that is her business — but I think she looked fine before, too.

Now that I’ve gotten a chance to write about the people I knew in North Carolina chess, what they would say about me? Actually, to start with, some of them wouldn’t know who “Dana Mackenzie” is. I changed my name in 1989, when I got married, and my wife and I moved to Ohio just three months later. So some of the people in North Carolina probably never even found out about the name change, and no one really had time to get used to it. (Previously my name was Dana Nance. As an amusing aside, the official list of North Carolina chess champions until this year listed the 1985 and 1987 champion as “Dana Vance”! I like anonymity, but that’s really taking it too far…)

When I won my first state championship, the Durham Morning Herald ran a short article about it. The reporter interviewed Leland Fuerstman, the tournament director, who told her that I was very “affable.” So the headline of the article read, “Affable Chess Champ Calls Game ‘A Work of Art’.” I don’t think that anyone noticed this article besides me and Robert Singletary, but forever after that Robert called me “Mr. Affable.” Oh well, I can think of worse ways to be remembered.

Share This

How did J. K. Rowling know?

Here is someone who has probably never played a chess game in her life, never had the gut-wrenching experience of losing a game she should have won … and yet she describes perfectly how it feels. When the dementors come to visit Harry Potter, he feels as if they have sucked out all the joy from his body, and there will never be joy in the world again. That’s exactly how I felt after I lost my game against Juande Perea this afternoon.

In the Harry Potter books, the remedy for the dementors is a Patronus charm — you think of the most wonderful, uplifting thing that you can. After that, a good serving of chocolate will help you get over the residual effects.

I didn’t have a Patronus charm, but fortunately I have a very understanding wife who brought me chocolate, and I’m now over the worst of it. In fact, I have a new way of ranking chess losses: by how many squares of chocolate it takes to get over them. This one took me four squares (at least).

Okay, I know that you guys want to see the gory details, right? They are plenty gory. Oh yes, they are.

I went into the game with a great frame of mind. I was going to apply Jesse Kraai’s lesson, play a nice mainstream opening, take advantage of the dynamic imbalances and all that. And I think I more or less succeeded. But I still lost, because of my old nemesis, time trouble.

The opening (I was White) was a King’s Gambit Declined, and I got a very nice middlegame out of it. In fact, I missed at least one probable win along the way. But let’s jump all the way ahead to move 41. We have just gotten past the time control, which means I have plenty of time to think (the second time control was game in one hour). Here is the position:

This is quite possibly the position where I lost the game. It’s not that I played a bad move — in fact, the move I chose (41. h5) may in fact be White’s best. But I spent 25 minutes on it, which meant I had only 35 minutes for the rest of the game. I could have made this move in one minute! It’s the move I would have played after one minute, after five minutes, … But instead of just playing the darned move, I had to keep on analyzing to make sure I had seen everything.

The main point is that Black cannot play 41. … g5? because of 42. hg hg 43. Rh2+ Kg7 44. Kg2! g5 45. Qh3!! and mate on the h-file is unstoppable. Did you see this? By the way, a similar thing happens after 43. … Kg8.

However, there is another very interesting line, which Juande pointed out after the game. That is 41. Re2, which he thought was winning for White. Actually, Fritz disagrees; it says that after 41. … Qe6! (preventing e4-e5) Black is no worse off than in the other line. But Juande did see something here that I didn’t. After 41. Re2 I thought Black would just play 41. … Rd8, and my b-pawn is hanging. However, after 42. e5! Black cannot take the pawn. If 42. … Qxb5?? (the move I was afraid of) 43. Qxb5! Nxb5 44. e6! and Black loses big-time. Or if 42. … Nxb5, now the key is not 43. e6?, when 43. … Rxd5! 44. ef Qxf7 hangs on for Black (Fritz says it’s equal), but instead 43. ef! and White is finally breaking down Black’s kingside.

Well, I think you can agree that this is a very complex position, and probably worth 5 or 10 minutes of study. But I think that I should give myself an ironclad rule from here on: never take more than 10 minutes on a move. It’s almost never worth it. Especially in a sudden-death time control like this one.

Okay, so the game continued 41. h5 Qd8 42. Nb4 Qf8 43. Nc6 Nb7 44. Qc3 (a planless move; I should just have played 44. Ra2. If he plays 44. … Nc5, I just play 45. Qc4 and chase his knight back.) 44. … Qd6 45. Rcf2 Nd8, and we get to our next key position.

Here again I think I played a good move, although perhaps not the best. I really should have looked harder at 46. Nxd8, because it’s the most forcing line. After 46. Nxd8 Rxd8 47. e5 fe 48. de Qd3+ 49. Qxd3 Rxd3+ 50. R2f3. This is actually really terrible for Black, because a swap of rooks leads to a won endgame for White, a point that I did not fully appreciate. And if Black tries the tricky 50. … Rxf4 51. Rxd3, now he has to defend mate and his rook on f4 is hanging. Fritz comes up with 51. … g5 here; nevertheless, I think that White is clearly winning.

Instead I played 46. d5, which I think was a pretty good move. If Black tries 46. …. Nb7? I hit him with 47. Ne5! (one of the points of 46. d5). So 46. … Nxc6 was pretty much expected, and now I played 47. Qxc6! I really liked this point. White is not at all afraid of trading queens, because in the endgame Black will still have a lot of trouble coordinating his rooks, and he will have to deal with the continuing threats of g5 and h6. To me, this was a good example of weighing the dynamic imbalances correctly.

But now my time was getting agonizingly low. After 47. … Qxc6 48. bc (another tough decision) I was down to 10 minutes for the rest of the game. Yes, I have squandered 50 minutes just on the last 8 moves! The game continued 48. … Rd6 49. g5 Kg8 and we get to our last key position.

Here my gut instinct was to play 50. Ra2, which would have been a good move. The point is that Black still can’t play 50. … fg? because of 51. Ra8+. So Black has to defend the first rank with 50. … Rd8, and now after 51. Ra7 White is still in complete control, and probably winning. But then I suddenly saw a cheapo: if I play 50. gf R6xf6? 51. Rxf6 Rxf6?? 52. Rxf6 gf, then White wins with 53. d6! And so, with less than 5 minutes now on my clock, I played 50. gf. This is again not really a blunder, but the problem was that I had no plan for what to do if Black didn’t fall into the cheapo. And he didn’t. He played 50. … gf.

And now the dementors started circling.

I had no idea what to do. According to Fritz, 51. Kf3 is good, and 51. h6 is even better. Basically, White has to anticipate that Black’s main threat is … f5, so he should bring his king over to defend the pawns.

But the dementors were circling, and I no longer could think rationally. I played 51. Rg4+? Kf8 52. Ra2 f5! 53. Ra8+ Ke7 54. Rgg8? (54. Rf4 is forced, with a probable draw) fe 55. Rge8+ Kf6 56. Kf4? (Don’t ask why. I can no longer think rationally.) 56. …. Rxd5 57. Rad8?? Rxd8 and now I resigned, because 58. Rxd8 Ke7+ wins my rook.

Aaaagh! The dementors! Aaaaa … aaaa … aaa … aa … a …

Share This

… or double your misery, or whatever. I now simultaneously have an article in Chess Life (which arrived in the mail yesterday) and a lecture on ChessLecture.

As longtime readers of this blog know, the Chess Life article has been in the works since last fall. It’s basically a print version of a ChessLecture that I gave called “Eight-Dimensional Chess,” which has turned out to be one of my most popular lectures there. (Last time I checked, it was #27 overall out of the more than 700 ChessLectures.) The editor of Chess Life initially accepted the article, then told me it would be delayed because of their budgetary problems, but then he managed to squeeze it into the May issue anyway. For Chess Life I came up with the title, ”Don’t Just Reassess Your Chess, IMPLODe It!” The title is, first, an homage to Jeremy Silman’s book How to Reassess Your Chess, and its sequel, The Reassess Your Chess Workbook, which was my inspiration for the article. And second, I’m referring to the mnemonic device that I suggest for remembering Silman’s seven classes of imbalances:

I = Initiative

M = Material

P = Pawn structure

L = Lines and squares

O = Officers (knights and bishops)

De = Development

S = Space

One thing you might be wondering is: If Silman lists seven classes of imbalances, then why did I call my lecture eight-dimensional chess? Ah … You don’t really want me to give everything away, do you?

Meanwhile, in this week’s ChessLecture, I looked at a reader submission that came from Israel. My lecture was a little long, but it’s a very interesting game from the point of view of strategy and tactics: first using tactics to achieve strategic goals, and then using your strategic advantages (in terms of Silman’s system, White had advantages in Initiative, Lines, Officers, and Space) to create tactical combinations.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned in the lecture, the hardest thing in chess is to know when the moment has arrived to look for a tactical solution; you don’t have someone tapping you on the shoulder and saying, “White to play and win.” In this game, White missed his opportunity, and then the game went into frantic time-scramble mode. One might say that the aesthetic value of the game was spoiled somewhat by time pressure, but let’s face reality. Time pressure is part of chess, and the player who keeps his cool and seizes his opportunities in time pressure deserves to win, even if he has been outplayed earlier.

For those readers of this blog who don’t subscribe either to Chess Life or ChessLecture, wouldn’t now be a great time to start?  

Share This

Just a heads up to all of you who follow the comments on this blog: Andres Hortillosa’s second column is now up on Chessville.com. You can click here to go straight to it.

Andres writes in detail about the Purdy system for avoiding blunders, which he has mentioned in his comments here but not in quite so much detail. You should read his column to get the full discussion and see some examples, but to me the salient point is that the Kotov method of looking at candidate moves (see Think Like a Grandmaster) is the wrong place to start. In fact, it’s step 5 in his eight-step program.

Step 1 is what Jonathan Rowson would call “talking to one’s pieces,” or what Andres calls “general reconnaissance.” (He is a member of the military, after all!) Steps 2-4 involve consciously identifying all the threats in the position, ranking them in severity, and then focusing on the most dangerous one. These are the steps that will help you avoid gross blunders, the kind that immediately lose the game or significant amounts of material. If you start at step 5, as in Kotov’s system, without first consciously identifying the threats, you will keep making blunders.

It’s hard for me to give an objective appraisal of this system without trying it first. I will bring up one question, which perhaps Andres can address in a later article. I have concerns about any system that involves going through multiple steps on every single move. If I do that, I’m afraid that I will get into time trouble. And if I’m already in time trouble, then I’m not going to have time to execute all eight steps. How then do I control the damage?

Incidentally, this criticism applies equally to Kotov’s method. I find that a full evaluation of a tree of candidate moves is possible at most a few times a game. Most of the time I need to do an abbreviated search, and part of the trick is identifying the positions where it is really worth taking the time for a deep search.

However, Andres’ basic point makes a lot of sense and bears repeating: If you verbalize the principal threats against you, the chances are much better that you will not fall into an egregious error. So many blunders, both in my own games and in those of other people, have the same root: “I didn’t see it!”

Andres promises to write later about identifying your own threats as well. This will help you avoid the errors of omission, when you have a chance to inflict serious damage on your opponent and overlook it. One thing I have noticed is that masters are terrific opportunists. When their opponent hands them a gift, they seize it with both hands.

It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of simply avoiding blunders. We all study the latest wrinkles in the openings, and spend lots of time trying to come up with deep plans or brilliant sacrifices, but the sad truth is that in amateur chess, a high percentage of games are decided by blunders. I felt that the main thing that got me to class A (1800-2000) was simply not blundering away material any more. The principal step that got me to expert (2000-2200) was taking advantage of my opponent’s blunders.

The next step, from expert to master, is one that I have not fully negotiated yet, because although I’ve gotten above 2200 I haven’t been able to stay there. According to Jesse Kraai, the next step is to recognize and appreciate dynamic imbalances. However, a second problem that dogs me is backsliding into old thought patterns. Last year I had a huge rash of games where I made outright tactical blunders, which was very frustrating; it felt as if I was playing like a B-player again. So a quick refresher course in the Purdy method should be very helpful to me.

Thanks, Andy! I’m looking forward to more installments!

Share This

Last night I went to chess club at Borders, for the first time since they moved their closing time to an hour earlier. This change has forced us to speed up the time controls, so that we now play three 15-minute games instead of three 25-minute games. From what I was told, the reduced hours are Borders’ response to competition from Barnes and Noble. Let’s see … You decrease service and frustrate both your employees and your customers. Some may call that “competition.” I would call it “shooting yourself in the foot.” But what do I know?

Two people at chess club mentioned that they read my blog. Thanks! The funny thing is that I knew about my international readers in France and Spain and Denmark, but I didn’t know about the readers in my own hometown! This blog entry is for you.

Last night we had a good turnout and a stronger than usual top quad, with four experts – Juande Perea, Rich Flacco, Dan Burkhard, and me. I wasn’t expecting to do too well, because I consider game/15 to be speed chess and I’m not usually very good at speed chess. But actually, I did better than expected. I beat both Rich and Juande. The games weren’t all that interesting, because I used the oldest strategy in the books: snatch a pawn, snatch another pawn, push the extra pawns and win. This doesn’t always work, because Juande and Rich aren’t usually in the habit of hanging pawns. But this was 15-minute chess, and I guess that affected their play as well as mine.

Rich, by the way, has returned after an absence of several years from the Santa Cruz chess scene. It’s great to see him back. He said that for the last few months he was in India, but he came back because he “couldn’t take it any more.” I think that his ”it” meant two things: (a) the disparity in wealth between rich and poor, and (b) the assumption that because you’re a foreigner, you are rich and can therefore be charged more for everything.

My third game, against Dan, was the most interesting one. We got to this position, where White has a slight space advantage and a better minor piece, but Black entertains some vague hopes of attacking on the kingside. (He was White, I was Black.)

Here Dan played 22. Ne6, which I would call Typical Speed Chess Mistake #1 in this game. In tournament chess you can (and should) take your time and prepare a move like this, but in speed chess the philosophy tends to be, “Full speed ahead and damn the torpedos.” Dan is attracted by the idea of creating an advanced passed pawn on e6, but he neglects to consider the open lines and attacking chances this will give to Black. Better would have been 22. Qd4, which not only “tickles” the pawn on a7 but also controls the a7-g1 diagonal, which turns out to be important.

After 22. Ne6 I played 22. … Bxe6, of course, and the game continued 23. Rxf8+ Rxf8 24. de Qc5+ 25. Kg2 Qc6+ 26. Kh3?!

Yikes! Another speed chess mistake. He should just play 26. Kg1 and agree to a draw by repetition. Dan is still underestimating the danger to his king. Only after I played 26. … Rf5! did he realize that he is in danger of getting checkmated. As it turns out, the computer says that his best and only move to draw here is 27. e7, but that looked too scary, and so he played 27. Qe2? Rh5+ 28. Kg4 Qc5 29. Kf3 Re5 30. Qd2.

The computer says that I have played the last nine moves perfectly, which is somewhat surprising considering how complicated the position was and considering the fact that I had less than two minutes left. Here, however, I missed the obvious combination to win a pawn. Do you see it?

This was Typical Speed Chess Mistake #2: Tunnel vision. I believe that the reason I missed this was that I was focused completely on either checkmating him or getting a perpetual check. The pawn on e6, on the other hand, had seemed securely defended, so I had dismissed from my mind any possibility of winning it.

As you probably see by now, the correct move is 30. … Rxe6! 31. Rxe6 Qf5+. It’s not clear that Black will win here — with less than two minutes on my clock and less than three minutes on his, anything could happen — but a pawn-up endgame with no significant weaknesses is much better than Black could have hoped for in our initial position.

Instead I played 30. … Qc6+? 31. Kg4 Re4+ 32. Kh3 Rxe1 33. Qxe1 Qe8, and White’s obnoxious pawn on e6 has been allowed to live. Black might still be able to draw this position with careful defense, but with so little time left on my clock I was not up to it, and I lost.

Share This

Here’s an update that no one asked for, on the Santa Cruz Cup, aka The World’s Slowest Chess Tournament. We got started last October with an eight-man round robin, which finally concluded in March… almost.

The trouble was that one game was still unplayed, and we couldn’t go on to the second phase of the tournament (the “championship round”) without it. It took a month to arrange, because of schedule conflicts, but Jeff Mallett finally played his game against Jim Parker and won. That created a tie between him and Dan Burkhard, which required a further playoff round to break.

Last weekend, Dan and Jeff had their playoff. They  split two games at a game/25 time control, then split two more at game/10. This is, of course, the situation that Juande Perea and I had last spring when we were playing off for the championship. We split two more at game/5 and then agreed to flip a coin instead of playing an Armageddon game. (I won the coin flip and took home the cup; however, officially we are co-champions.) This time, there wasn’t any Armageddon or any coin flip; Dan won both of the 5-minute games and thus qualified for the top quad.

So here are the standings from phase 1 again:

1. Ilan Benjamin (6.5-0.5)
2. Dana Mackenzie (5-2)
3. Juande Perea (5-2)
4. Dan Burkhard (3-4) * won playoff
5. Jeff Mallett (3-4)
6. Yves Tan (2.5-4.5)
7. Ken Seehart (2-5)
8. Jim Parker (1-6)

Now we enter the championship round, which will be a quad between the top four players (Benjamin, Mackenzie, Perea, and Burkhard) and a quad between the bottom four (Mallett, Tan, Seehart, Parker). I think we’ll get the quads started next weekend, May 4, and with any luck we might be finished with the tournament by the end of May. But I won’t guarantee it!

By the way, one of my ChessLecture listeners suggested an interesting solution to the Armageddon problem. If you want to break a tie with one game, he said that you should let Player A pick the time control that he thinks is fair (e.g., 7 minutes for White, 5 minutes for Black) and let Player B pick the color he wants. Remember that Black would get draw odds, which is why one would generally expect Player A to set a control with more time for White.

This is an interesting idea, similar to the fair division of a cake among two people (one person cuts the cake, the other picks which piece he wants). However, it doesn’t quite address one of my complaints about Armageddon games, which is that the draw odds actually make it a different game. Various openings and strategies become unavailable to White because he has to win. But maybe I’m making too big a deal about that. What do you think? Do you like the “fair division” approach to an Armageddon game? What time odds would you pick in order to balance out the draw odds?

Share This