King Hunts and Lazy Bishops: The Bird

So last night an odd thing happened. I was playing an 1800 on the ICC. It was late and I was feeling adventurous, so I opened our second 45/3 game with 1. f4, also known as The Bird. It always provides an entertaining game, so I went for it.

As typical for the way *I* play 1. f4, my queenside bishop didn’t develop right away. Then, during the middle game, it still didn’t develop. In fact, all through my ultimately successful king hunt, the thing never, ever developed. And yet, amazingly, it actually helped to entomb black’s king down on *my* side of the board.

I wonder what the chances are? Oh, sure, beginner games get extremely wild. But what are the chances a couple A players will experience a game like that? It was surreal, I can tell you that.

I’ve listed the game below in PGN format. You can copy/paste into your favorite chess program and check it out if you like. I haven’t even gone over the game with my engine yet; I woke up and thought I’d better share this sucker. That was something else!

[Event "ICC 45 3"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2014.01.22"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Skwerly"]
[Black "FreshSocks"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ICCResult "White declared winner by adjudication"]
[WhiteElo "1833"]
[BlackElo "1781"]
[Opening "Bird's opening"]
[ECO "A02"]
[NIC "VO.07"]
[Time "00:48:53"]
[TimeControl "2700+3"]

1. f4 g6 2. e4 Bg7 3. Nf3 c5 4. Nc3 d6 5. Bb5+ Bd7 6. Qe2 Nc6 7. O-O Nd4 8.
Bxd7+ Qxd7 9. Qd3 Nxf3+ 10. Qxf3 O-O-O 11. a4 h5 12. a5 Bd4+ 13. Kh1 Nh6 14.
a6 e6 15. axb7+ Qxb7 16. Qd3 Ng4 17. Nb5 Nf2+ 18. Rxf2 Bxf2 19. Rxa7 Qb6 20.
Rxf7 Rhe8 21. c4 d5 22. Qa3 Kb8 23. Nc7 Qxc7 24. Rxc7 Kxc7 25. Qa7+ Kd6 26.
e5+ Kc6 27. cxd5+ Kxd5 28. Qb7+ Kc4 29. Qe4+ Kb3 30. d3 Rd4 31. Qe2 Ra8 32.
Qd1+ Ka2 33. b3 {Black resigns} 1-0

Houdini: The Best, Sure, but Necessary?

Oh, boy. I was reading a ChessBase article this morning, and they said something I thought was fantastically asinine and mind-bogglingly incorrect. I have been arguing about this exact thing for years now.  Here is the quote, regarding the Houdini 3 engine that is now available commercially:

If you were going to consult someone on a chess position, and had the choice between a grandmaster or the world champion, wouldn’t you opt for the world champion even if the grandmaster already provided an answer beyond your personal ability?

What? Why? That is ridiculous, in my opinion. Claiming that only the world champion would be the best coach/advice giver is completely off base. Miles and miles off base.

If I had a child who was just beginning to swim, would I need to hire Michael Phelps for lessons? Anything else is second best? Good grief, no. If I were starting to learn guitar, there would be many teachers besides Eddie Van Halen himself that would suit me just fine. 

It’s hype, folks. Most of the people who ask what engine they need are at the beginner or low intermediate chess level, and carry a rating somewhere between 1,100 and 1,600 Elo.

If we were to believe the article, then that player would benefit more from what the world chess champion has to say about their games as opposed to someone rated only a thousand or two above him. What a crock. That’s a load if I’ve ever heard one.

Is the new Houdini engine strong and smooth? Oh, I have no doubt. I just don’t happen to believe that, above the 3,000 Elo level, 100 points here and there is worth the sixty bucks you have to shell out vs. a free engine that’ll do the same thing for 99% of players out there.

Here is one thing I did like, though, being an engine fan:

These databases are known as endgame tablebases, and even just the sets with up to five pieces, take up about 7 GB. The Scorpio bitbases do the exact same thing, with perfect knowledge, but take up about 300MB and can be stored in the RAM, making them far more compact and easy for the engine to consult on the fly.

Okay, that’s pretty cool. That’s really cool, in fact. I have been into chess engines since around 2004, and I have seen tons of changes along the way. Back then, though, I would sign my engine on to a playing server and get into battles with other engines.

Tweaking them was the name of the game, back then. But they weren’t playing at the 3,300 level. I was screwing around with fast and strong (for then) engines like Aristarch, Arasan, TheKing (Chessmaster’s engine), Gandalf, Ruffian, and myriad others. This was all before the introduction of engines like Rybka and Fruit, two strong engines that pretty much wrecked the fun. 

In short: Hey, if you want to shell out sixty bucks so that you can say you have the strongest engine in the world, go for it. Houdini is a very, very nice engine and it’ll never let you down. If, however, you just need a grandmaster strength study partner, almost any free engine will do just fine. Trust me on that.

If you are rated in the 1,000, 1,500 or even 1,900 range, the 2,700 rated engine is going to tell you the exact same thing about your games that a 3,500 rated engine will. 

Just sayin’.

Link to article: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8633

Looking forward, as always, to your comments. 

          

Chess Study: What is Correct?

I see a lot of advice about what, when, where, and how much to study chess. This advice is flung around like the Sunday laundry on every chess site and forum I’m a part of. Of course, if we wish to improve we *should* study, and that does raise the empirical questions: How? What? When? How much?

It’s a cycle, really, and it never seems to end. So, I’ll throw in my two cents.

I do not have a FIDE title and I’m not even a USCF expert, but I don’t believe one needs to be a powerhouse in chess to know the answer to the above questions. I think a good, healthy dose of common sense can get us quite far, both in chess and in life.

1. What should I study?

Well, I think it’s crucial for each player to assess their own play and get an idea, however hazy, where they are weakest. Do you lose a lot of games out of the opening? Do you have zero endgame skill? Maybe you rush through middle games and end up with really bad positions? Whatever your weakness, it’s probably easier than you think it is to recognize them and strengthen those areas.

2. When should I study?

This one is easy: Whenever you have time! Take a chess book with you to the doctor’s office, watch video lectures in the evening instead of a TV show, play through your own games with a critical eye and then an engine to see where mistakes are made, etcetera. Each person’s own life situations will dictate when they can study.

3. Where should I study?

This one seems simple, but maybe it isn’t. Should you study at the PC? Should you study on a board with a book open in front of you? Should you buy chess DVDs and study that way? Should you hire a coach and do what he/she tells you? The options are almost infinite, and I believe it’s up to each person to determine how they learn best. I was dealt a good helping of ADHD and so book study for me is trying; I far prefer videos, and the information sticks deeper. Try each method – see which one is best for YOU!

4. How much should I study?

Again, this is largely going to depend on YOU, and how quickly and how much YOU would like to learn and improve. See the trend, here?  If you get bored and space off after an hour of study, then you should study for one hour at a time. If you really love delving into a good chess book and working through the positions and variations all day on Saturday, then you should study like that. If you hate studying chess and would rather play bullet and fast blitz, then do that; just don’t complain when your rating and skill level never increases.

So, you see, ladies and gents, it is MY opinion that each student and lover of chess will require something different to get the maximum benefits. I guarantee you that I can get more out of a quality thirty-minute video than I can from a full hour of book study most of the time. I learn well that way, and so I tailor my study habits to reflect that.

Play a few long games, whether OTB or on the Internet, then take a critical look at them and decide where you most often go wrong. Then, study that part of the game! It really is that easy, folks.

Greats who weren't Greats

Lately, I have been thinking about the greats who weren’t greats specifically because someone greater existed in their time. This has happened in every generation, but the 1920s and 1930s were a great example of the phenomenon, so we’ll use Alekhine as an example.

Because Alekhine existed and was so powerful, many great players unfortunately lived in his shadow, both then and now. When someone like Alekhine comes along, it’s very difficult to make a name for yourself.

Here is a list of a few greats who weren’t great because of Alekhine:

Hans Kmoch

Saviely Tarakover

Aaron Nimzowitsch

Frederick Yates

Frank Marshall

Rudolf Spielmann

Richard Reti

Geza Maroczy

David Janowsky

Edgar Colle

Fritz Saemisch

Akiba Rubinstein

Ernst Gruenfeld

Hans Mueller

Efim Bogoljubow

Vasja Pirc

Salo Flohr

Henry Grob

Vera Menchik

Reuben Fine

There are a ton more, but I’ll leave it at that so you get the gist. Now, just about every player on that list was very accomplished and extremely strong. Many of them had opening variations named after them, which are still regularly used today, such as Gruenfeld, Reti, and Pirc.

Now, have you ever wondered what the heck would have happened if the big boys like Euwe, Alekhine and Capablanca were out of the picture? Some of these ‘big’ chess names would have become giant chess names, that’s what.

I try and appreciate the games of these lesser masters, but the draw to Alekhine prowess is simply too great for me. I always end up firing up the Alekhine database and scrolling through the moves with awe.

Do you have a favorite player who lived in the shadow of a greater player?

2012 World Chess Championship Rigged

As most of you already know, Anand has retained his world champion title. Gelfand put up a heck of a fight but in the end, Anand got him. The question isn’t who the champ is, the question is whether or not how he got there is even ethical, chess-speaking.

The world championship changed a bit this year, and the winner was to be determined via rapid chess in the event of a tie, which there was. I don’t believe, personally, that rapid chess has any place in the world championship.

Anand is clearly stronger in rapid stuff than Gelfand, and both players knew this. Therefore, all Anand had to do was draw the match for a guaranteed win, because there was no doubt he’d be the victor in rapid play.

Does that mean he’s stronger? I don’t know. Maybe. What I do know is that it likely stole from his fighting spirit in the long-chess games; what is he to risk fighting for, when the win is handed to him in the rapids? Nobody in their right mind would do that.

The “first player to six wins” type matches are inherently a bit flawed, because they can go on and on and on, but in my eyes they are more fair, more *right*, than deciding who gets such a prestigious title via blitz games. To me, that makes Anand the world’s rapid champion, not the world’s chess champion.

Who knows who would have taken the match had they continued in classical time controls? I believe both players had strong chances and, if Anand really is the stronger player, he would have eventually come out on top, anyhow.

But jeez, give Gelfand a chance!

Rapid chess is a completely different animal than long chess. Yes, the rules of chess are the same, but the game is cheapened quite a bit by limiting the scope of thinking time. We all saw what happened to Kimbo Slice, a backyard boxer, when he tried mixed martial arts: he got has butt kicked.

In this chess scenario, Anand would be the mixed martial artist because he’s good at both long and short time controls, and poor Gelfand is the backyard boxer. He’s tough, but he is limited in the arena of rapid chess, so he’s going to lose the match. 

Understandably, the world champion should be good at both, I suppose, and Gelfand is extremely strong at rapid – just not as strong as Anand.

But does it even matter? 

I’m not convinced it does. With over a million dollars at stake per player, let these guys hash it out until a true victor emerges. Those two weren’t playing a tournament in hopes of winning a couple hundred bucks by taking their section; they were fighting for the *world championship*, and as such, I believe they should have had to play accordingly.

Just saying.

The GM Draw: Let's Have a Look

I have blogged about this before, and there have been many discussions at chessforums.org about the same thing. While the ‘GM draw’ phenomenon can be annoying, it is also the natural, expected outcome many times. I’ll look at both examples below.

The annoying GM draw:

This is the one that is agreed to after twelve or fifteen moves of a boring-looking, well-known line between two grandmasters. Yawn. These short draws are only possible and only exist because of the half-point draw system. If draws were worth nothing, or if they *lost* half a point for the players, we’d see more fighting chess.  But that’s neither her nor there. It’s simply tournament strategy, nothing more. It saves them from expelling all their mental energy early in a match so they can use it for opponents who might prove problematic, as well. 

The natural GM draw:

Okay, this one is way more logical to me. You have two guys who have cleared the 2600 level in chess – 2600! That’s huge, folks. Beyond comprehension for most of us. Both the players know opening theory extremely well, they are tactical and positional monsters, and they are well-versed, if not complete experts, at endgames. 

Now, if you expect either of these players to fall for more than a few, really deep and well planned out tricks, you are smoking the good stuff. One player attempts an attack, the other sees it and thwarts it, and maybe creates a counter-attack. The first player sees this, thwarts it, and the game is eventually drawn after such a back-and-forth.

What’s so hard to understand about that?

The less mistakes and oversights each player makes in chess, the higher the chances of a draw. That’s just Logic 101, folks. The GM draw isn’t going away anytime soon, in either form, so get used to it.

If you like fighting chess, there are many, many GMs still around who don’t play for draws. Exciting chess still exists, you just have to know who to watch.

Anand vd. Gelfand Title Match

Yay! It’s time for another world chess championship. This year is a real nail-biter, too, if you ask me. Anand, who has defended his title four times already, is said by some to be slowly losing his sharpness. Gelfand, the same general age as Anand, isn’t nearly as accomplished but is a world-class player, nonetheless. In fact, he’s rated below Nakamura, who I personally think would have a shot. But that’s neither here nor there, for this entry.

I think the general opine that Anand is ‘losing his touch’ isn’t necessarily due to anything he is or isn’t doing, but rather what others are doing. Carlsen has broken well into the 2800s and is rated above Anand, as are Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik.

I won’t go into the ratings conundrum, but I think it’s a little unfair to say that Anand is losing his touch. He doesn’t necessarily have fiery combos like Alekhine but then, who does? Today’s top players cannot afford to take too much risk or they’ll get the game handed to them quickly, for the most part

Kasparov, arguably the best player of all time, did incorporate huge tactical shots and deep positional understanding into his games, but that’s why he was on the throne for so long: he could get away with such. He is Kasparov.

So, who do you think the favorite will be in the Anand vs. Gelfand match? Is there a favorite? Is it anyone’s game? I personally tend to root for the underdog and would love to see Gelfand display a stellar performance but even if he does, it won’t guarantee the title. Anand is no beginner. He’s wildly strong and has shown, beyond any doubt, that he’s a true chess artist.

Opinions?