Best match chess

In yet another thrilling Blitz Death Match, Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi edged out Grandmaster Alejandro Ramirezby a final score of 16.5-13.5, pulling away just enough in the final portion of play (Bullet) to win by three games.

The first Death Match of the year was held last weekend, January 12th for those in the Western Hemisphere - January 13th for those in the East. The different time zones meant GM Ramirez was to play late into the night (the match ended at roughly 11pm local time in Dallas, Texas USA), while GM Negi was forced to wake up much earlier than usual, with the pre-match interviews starting before 7:00 AM in India. 

The match started out with a bang, with both players trading blows in the "slow" stage of the match (5 minutes + 1 second increment). Here's a nice win by each of these powerhouse players: 

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Be2 Nf6 6.Nc3 Qc7 7.O-O d6 8.f4 Be7 9.Be3 Nc6 10.Kh1 O-O 11.Qe1 Nxd4 12.Bxd4 b5 13.Qg3 Bb7 14.a3 Rad8 15.Rae1 Rd7 16.Bd3 Bc6 17.Nd5 exd5 18.exd5 Bxd5 19.Rxe7 Rxe7 20.Bxf6 g6 21.f5 Rfe8 22.fxg6 fxg6 23.Bxg6 hxg6 24.Qxg6+ Rg7 25.Qxe8+

2013 SPICE Cup

Le Quang Liem winning the 2011 SPICE Cup

As well as the seven 2700+ players, there are 14 players rated between 2600 and 2699. Two names to look out for: we are very pleased to welcome back Artur Yusupov (or Jussupow, to give the German version of his name), who was a world championship contender of the 1980s, three times reaching the semi-final stage of the Candidates’ competition. Artur was coached and mentored by the legendary Mark Dvoretsky and he later became his regular writing collaborator, helping to produce a number of influential titles. Artur is a giant of the game, but very much a gentle giant, with a ready smile. The other name to look out for is Gawain Jones, the reigning British Champion, who recently added another success to his record when he won the traditionalHastings Masters tournament.
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Artur Yusupov	Gawain Jones

The first prize in the Masters is an impressive £20,000 but one of the distinctive features of the Gibraltar tournament is the long list of special women’s prizes which can be won in addition to the main Masters prizes. First prize for female competitors is set at £12,000 and there are more than £24,000 in subsidiary women’s prizes, so there is also an impressive field of top women players in competition.

To give you an idea, the 2004 Women’s World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova, who reached the final of the 2012 Women’s World Championship and was close to regaining her title, is at number 39 in the competitors and in sixth place amongst the women’s competitors. In rating order the top women competitors in 2013 are Anna Muzychuk, Nana Dzagnidze, Zhao Xue, Marie Sebag, Pia Cramling, Antoaneta Stefanova, Viktorija Cmilyte, Dronavalli Harika and Ju Wenjun. All of these are rated in excess of 2500, and all but Marie Sebag and Ju Wenjun have competed at Gibraltar before (in most cases, regularly).

Anna Muzychuk and Zhao Xue at the 2012 Ankara Women's Grand Prix

Of course, there are lots of other prizes for different rating categories, juniors, seniors, etc. One of them we will mention specifically is the special prize awarded by the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP) to the best score made by one of their members. In the citation for this the ACP said “by establishing this prize, the ACP is proud to support its members' choice: earlier this year the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival won the “2012 Best Open Tournament of the Year" vote, run by the ACP.” To which we can only respond – thanks very much, ACP!

Live coverage

The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival has always been at the forefront of webcasting technology, housed at the specially-built suite at the Caleta Hotel, and this year we have added to our commentary team. English GM Simon Williams will be with us again and he will be joined at the commentator’s desk by reigning US Women’s Champion Irina Krush.

news results

The 11th edition of the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festivalstarts on Monday and promises to be as prestigious and exciting as the previous ten.

With ten tournaments now played, the Gibraltar Festival already has a bit of history behind it and maybe it’s time to consider a few stats and records. For example, let’s consider the most impressive victory in terms of score and rating performance: that goes to Ukrainian super-GMVassily Ivanchuk in 2011 when he ran up an amazing 9/10 score and was only 32 rating points shy of 3000. That’s right – a TPR of 2968!

As for the player with the most Gibraltar victories: that honour goes to England’s Nigel Short, who shared first with Vassilios Kotronias at the inaugural tournament in 2003, came back to win outright in 2004, and won last year’s tournament after a play-off with Women’s World Champion Hou Yifan. That’s three first places in only five visits to the Rock.

Vassily Ivanchuk and Nigel Short, Round 6 2011

Those seem like the most significant stats – and the good news is that Ivanchuk and Short are back to do battle in 2013. Nigel Short could consider himself more than a little unlucky not to have won a fourth Gibraltar title in 2011 when he scored 8½/10 for a rating performance of 2883: good enough in almost any other year but not when Hurricane Chucky is blowing through the Straits of Gibraltar! The sight of Chucky and Nigel cutting a swathe through the rest of the field that year is not one that those of us who witnessed it will forget.

Nigel’s consolation came in 2012 when he managed to finish level with Hou Yifan after the Chinese women’s world champion had recorded one of the finest performances (if not the best ever performance) by a female player in chess history, and then used his vast experience to overcome her in the play-off.
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Nigel Short beat Hou Yifan in a playoff in 2012

Nigel enjoys playing in Gibraltar and he remains one of the most formidable Swiss System specialists in the world, but in rating terms he is only eighth in the pecking order at the 2013 Tradewise Gibraltar Masters. Between number one Ivanchuk and number eight Short are some more big-name players. Like Nigel, Gata Kamsky is a former world championship finalist and he has played in Gibraltar before though he has still to win the title.

25-year-old Polish GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek is third in rating order on 2723. Radoslaw is perhaps not as well known as he might be but this might almost be deliberate: he is one of Vishy Anand’s regular helpers at world championship matches. He is making his first appearance at Gibraltar.
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Gata Kamsky	Radoslaw Wojtaszek

  
Mickey Adams is the fourth highest rated player playing in Gibraltar. He is a former winner, having tied with eight(!) others on 7½/10 in 2010 and then won the play-off. Mickey comes to Gibraltar on the crest of a wave (well, not literally – I expect he is flying in like everyone else). At the recent London Classic he finished an excellent third equal after Carlsen and Kramnik, and with a win against world champion Vishy Anand to his credit. In the process he wrested back his status as England’s highest rated player from Luke McShane. At 2725 he is the only English player currently above the elite 2700 threshold. This will be his fifth Gibraltar tournament. Mickey almost personifies the Rock: he has only lost one game of the 39 classical games he has played here.
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Mickey Adams at the 2012 London Chess Classic

22-year-old French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is making his third visit to Gibraltar. In 2009 he scored what was for him a slightly below par 6½/10 and then 6/10 last year, so he will be looking to make it third time lucky. At 2713 he is France’s top rated player.
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Maxime Vachier-Lagrave winning the 2012 SPICE Cup

 Some last-minute recruitment on the part of our tournament director secured the services of another very strong and interesting 2700+ player – Czech GM David Navara. 27-year-old David is a universally popular player who is definitely going to be a big hit with the Gibraltar audience. David has played several sponsored matches in Prague against strong opposition and has match wins against Nigel Short and Sergei Movsesian to his credit.
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Last minute recruit GM David Navara, at the 2011 World Cup

Alexei Shirov needs no little introduction. He could and should have had a match for the world title with Garry Kasparov in the late 1990s when he was one of the best four or five players in the world but lack of financial backing meant the match was never held and later he had to stand by and watch Vladimir Kramnik – the player whom he had beaten to earn the shot at Kasparov – not only get an invitation to a title match but win it. Since then Shirov has become one of the world’s most prolific players, playing and winning a whole host of events. He has been to Gibraltar three times, in 2005, 2006 and 2012, with scores of 7½/10 (five-way tie for first), 7/10 and 6½/10. Alexei represented Spain for many years but has recently re-registered for his native Latvia.
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Alexei Shirov at the 2011 Euro Team Championships

Le Quang Liem is the last of the Gibraltar line-up’s eight players rated in excess of 2700 on the January 2013 FIDE List. The 21-year-old Vietnamese GM burst onto the elite scene in the space of a few months in 2009/2010 when he first won the annual Kolkata Tournament in India, and then two prestigious tournaments in Russia, the Aeroflot and the Moscow Open. The Aeroflot success secured him an invitation to the 2010 Dortmund tournament where he proved his earlier victories were not flukes by securing second place behind Ponomariov but ahead of Kramnik. This is his second Gibraltar tournament: he scored 7/10 last year.

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chess nation

 Some last-minute recruitment on the part of our tournament director secured the services of another very strong and interesting 2700+ player – Czech GM David Navara. 27-year-old David is a universally popular player who is definitely going to be a big hit with the Gibraltar audience. David has played several sponsored matches in Prague against strong opposition and has match wins against Nigel Short and Sergei Movsesian to his credit.

Alexei Shirov needs no little introduction. He could and should have had a match for the world title with Garry Kasparov in the late 1990s when he was one of the best four or five players in the world but lack of financial backing meant the match was never held and later he had to stand by and watch Vladimir Kramnik – the player whom he had beaten to earn the shot at Kasparov – not only get an invitation to a title match but win it. Since then Shirov has become one of the world’s most prolific players, playing and winning a whole host of events. He has been to Gibraltar three times, in 2005, 2006 and 2012, with scores of 7½/10 (five-way tie for first), 7/10 and 6½/10. Alexei represented Spain for many years but has recently re-registered for his native Latvia.
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chess history

Mickey Adams is the fourth highest rated player playing in Gibraltar. He is a former winner, having tied with eight(!) others on 7½/10 in 2010 and then won the play-off. Mickey comes to Gibraltar on the crest of a wave (well, not literally – I expect he is flying in like everyone else). At the recent London Classic he finished an excellent third equal after Carlsen and Kramnik, and with a win against world champion Vishy Anand to his credit. In the process he wrested back his status as England’s highest rated player from Luke McShane. At 2725 he is the only English player currently above the elite 2700 threshold. This will be his fifth Gibraltar tournament. Mickey almost personifies the Rock: he has only lost one game of the 39 classical games he has played here.

‘The following story, no less delightful for probably being apochryphal [sic], conveys Chotimirsky’s qualities admirably: in the St Petersburg tournament of 1909, Chotimirsky defeated both Emanuel Lasker and Rubinstein .. and managed to come 13th in a field of 19. Regarding his win against Lasker, it is said that he infuriated the world champion by pretending to be deeply absorbed in a Japanese translation of Also Sprach Zarathustra during their game.’

The article was reproduced in Reinfeld’s The Treasury of Chess Lore (New York, 1951); see page 161.
The anecdote also appeared (‘There is a story to the effect that ...’, but with no mention of Japanese) on page 131 of another Reinfeld book, The Great Chess Masters and Their Games (New York, 1952). And again on page 82 of a further Reinfeld work, How to Play Winning Chess (New York, 1962):

‘The story is told that during the course of his game with Emanuel Lasker (the world champion) in the St Petersburg tournament of 1909, Chotimirsky read a Japanese translation of Thus Spake Zarathustra. Legend has it that the world champion was so incensed at the young man’s studied insolence that he lost the game. Whatever the cause of his defeat, Lasker was singularly reticent about this encounter.’

Two or three years later Lasker made some remarks about Dus-Chotimirsky in an item in the New YorkEvening Post, as related on page 67 of the March 1912 American Chess Bulletin, but there was no reference to their game in St Petersburg or to the episode so flimsily recounted by Reinfeld (‘It is said that ...’, ‘There is a story to the effect that ...’, ‘The story is told that ...’ and ‘Legend has it that ...’).

online chess

Chigorin could have forced mate with 24...Rh1+ 25 Nxh1 Bh2+, etc., but was Chernev correct to state that the position had ‘very often’ been published as a brilliant win by Chigorin? Citations are sought.
‘This is a worthy candidate for the title of Greatest Combination That Was Never Played’, suggested Andy Soltis on page 12 of the December 1990 Chess Life. Apart from writing that the game ended with perpetual check, he had an incorrect venue (Berlin) twice and an incorrect date (1987) once. Berlin was also given in various editions of Renaud and Kahn’s book L’art de faire mat (The Art of the Checkmate).
Who discovered the missed win? Below is one claim, on page 210 of The Art of Chess by James Mason (London, 1905),

Finally, the ...Rh1+ brilliancy was indeed played, although only in a subsequent display of living chess. This report comes from pages 262-263 of the July 1897 BCM:

‘An extraordinary exhibition of chess with living pieces took place at St Petersburg on 5 June, which drew an immense crowd to the velodrome of the St Petersburg Cycling Club. The game selected to be played was the 13th of the match between Chigorin and Schiffers, in which, as we have already shown, the former at his 23rd move had a beautiful mate on in five moves. It was intended to illustrate the episode in the Hungarian uprising of 1849 when the dictator Georgey [Görgey], after his unfortunate battle at Világos, was taken prisoner, and surrendered to the Russians, and more or less the costumes adopted called to mind the nationalists of both sides. The large open space in the velodrome was laid out as a gigantic chess board, whose squares were clearly distinguished by sprinkled white sand and dark material. Its size was about 5,000 square metres, and each piece was represented by from three to eight persons. Thus, the king and queen were on horseback, surrounded by servants, pages and warriors. Each knight was represented by three armed riders; the bishops (as we so absurdly call them) consisted of six young ladies clothed in tasteful bright and dark red dresses; the castles were nearly ten feet high, and on their ramparts were cannons and troops; finally, each pawn was embodied in five foot-soldiers. This combination of persons for each piece must have been somewhat confusing, but all seems to have gone off well. The conductors were Chigorin and Schiffers, the former commanding the Russian and the latter the Hungarian army. Each move was heralded by a horn signal, which set the respective divisions of forces in motion.’

chess en ligne

that according to a report by Monvoisin in La Liberté, 26 September 1927 (reproduced on pages 722-723 of the September 1927 L’Echiquier) Polikier’s forename was Miroslar. He appeared, with Alekhine, in a group photograph on page 345 of the August 1975 BCM; see too page 544 of the December 1975 issue. When Chéron v Polikier was given on page 21 of 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (New York, 1955) by Irving Chernev it was unimpressively introduced as follows:

‘The story goes that when Monsieur Polikier lost this game, he swore never to play another game of chess again as long as he lived!’

It was by no means the end of his playing career.

formation chess

1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Bg5 Nbd7 5 e3 Be7 6 Nf3 O-O 7 Qc2 c6 8 a3 dxc4 9 Bxc4 Nd5 10 Bxe7 Qxe7 11 Ne4 N5f6 12 Bd3 Nxe4 13 Bxe4 h6 14 O-O e5 15 Rfe1 Qf6 16 Rad1 exd4 17 exd4 Nb6 18 Ne5 Be6 19 Re3 Rad8 20 Rf3 Qh4 21 g3 Qh5 22 h4 Bg4 23 Re1 Nd5 24 Rxf7 Rxf7 25 Bh7+ Kh8 26 Bg6 Qxe5 27 dxe5 Rff8 28 e6 Ne7 29 Bf7 Rd4 30 Qc5 Rfd8 31 Qxe7 Bf3 32 Qxd8+ Resigns.
This game was won by Salo Flohr against Karel Vaněk in a team match in Brno between Prague and Brno on 3 November 1929. He annotated it on pages 182-183 of the December 1929 Československý Šach, and a more detailed set of notes was provided by Tartakower on pages 9-11 of the January 1930 issue of Ajedrez

chess source

USA (exact occasion?)
1 f4 f5 2 e4 fxe4 3 f5 Nf6 4 Be2 h5 5 Nh3 d5 6 O-O Qd6 7 Nf4 Bxf5 8 Nxh5 Bg6 9 Nxf6+ exf6 10 h3 Qg3 11 Bg4 Bc5+ 12 Kh1 Bd6 13 Kg1 Qh2+ 14 Kf2 f5 15 Be2 and Black gave mate in seven. However, our computer offers 15…e3+ 16 Kxe3 Qe5+ and mate in three more moves.

Source: Deutsche Schachzeitung, June 1872, page 167.
Thomas Niessen (Aachen, Germany) now notes that the game was given in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletinon 22 July 1870. Reichhelm’s column stated that it was played at the Schu[e]tzen Halle in Philadelphia, and he called the opening the ‘Gambit Philadelphienne’ [sic].
Our correspondent adds that on 15 July 1870 the column in the Bulletin had published, without details of the occasion, another game with the same opening, the players being Huch and Bode:
1 f4 f5 2 e4 fxe4 3 f5 Nf6 4 Be2 d5 5 Bh5+ Nxh5 6 Qxh5+ Kd7 7 Nc3 c6 8 b4 b5 9 a4 Ba6 10 Nge2 e6 11 fxe6+ Kxe6 12 Nd4+ Ke7 13 O-O bxa4

Mate in 2 moves

7911. Two pawns (C.N. 7901)


White to move and draw

We took this composition from page 30 of the February 1942 Schweizerische Schachzeitung. The solution was on page 129 of the August 1942 issue: 1 g4+ Kf6 2 g5+ Ke7 3 gxh6 Nf6 4 h7 Re8 5 h8(Q).

The magazine stated that the composer was J. Jonas of Zurich and that the original source was the National-Zeitung, 1939. Richard Forster (Zurich) has provided cuttings from that newspaper (2 November and 23 November 1939). The second of these reported that the black bishop at h5 needed to be on e2 for the sake of soundness (since otherwise, as our correspondent points out, 1 g4+ Kg5 2 gxh5 offers White no prospect of stalemate).

7912. My 61 Memorable Games

Via Frederic Friedel (Hamburg, Germany) we learn that Garðar Sverrisson, who may be regarded as Fischer’s closest confidant in Iceland, states that Fischer would never have considered bringing out a book such as My 61 Memorable Games without consulting him. Mr Sverrisson writes:

‘When I told Bobby about the forgery in early December 2007 he just became sad and disappointed, exactly as he used to react when he learned about slander or a similar betrayal. At that time his health was deteriorating, and we had other things to worry about than who might be behind this book.

When we discussed the possibility of having My 60 Memorable Games republished he was very much against using any improvements of his own or others (including computers). And changing the notation from the descriptive to the algebraic was out of the question.

We never saw My 61 Memorable Games, and I still have not seen it.’


7913. Rosanes v Anderssen

From Fabrizio Zavatarelli (Milan, Italy):

‘Well-known classics can be surprisingly mysterious. A particular case is the game between J. Rosanes and A. Anderssen (Breslau, 1863), which seems to have appeared in books before it was published in magazines:

1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 g5 4 h4 g4 5 Ne5 Nf6 6 Bc4 d5 7 exd5 Bd6 8 d4 Nh5 9 Bb5+ c6 10 dxc6 bxc6 11 Nxc6 Nxc6 12 Bxc6+ Kf8 13 Bxa8 Ng3 14 Rh2 Bf5 15 Bd5 Kg7 16 Nc3 Re8+ 17 Kf2 Qb6 18 Na4 Qa6 19 Nc3 Be5 20 a4

We took this composition from page 30 of the February 1942 Schweizerische Schachzeitung. The solution was on page 129 of the August 1942 issue: 1 g4+ Kf6 2 g5+ Ke7 3 gxh6 Nf6 4 h7 Re8 5 h8(Q).

The magazine stated that the composer was J. Jonas of Zurich and that the original source was the National-Zeitung, 1939. Richard Forster (Zurich) has provided cuttings from that newspaper (2 November and 23 November 1939). The second of these reported that the black bishop at h5 needed to be on e2 for the sake of soundness (since otherwise, as our correspondent points out, 1 g4+ Kg5 2 gxh5 offers White no prospect of stalemate).

Michael Clarke Duncan and chess

Those seem like the most significant stats – and the good news is that Ivanchuk and Short are back to do battle in 2013. Nigel Short could consider himself more than a little unlucky not to have won a fourth Gibraltar title in 2011 when he scored 8½/10 for a rating performance of 2883: good enough in almost any other year but not when Hurricane Chucky is blowing through the Straits of Gibraltar! The sight of Chucky and Nigel cutting a swathe through the rest of the field that year is not one that those of us who witnessed it will forget.

Nigel’s consolation came in 2012 when he managed to finish level with Hou Yifan after the Chinese women’s world champion had recorded one of the finest performances (if not the best ever performance) by a female player in chess history, and then used his vast experience to overcome her in the play-off.