Tal Memorial 2011: Aronian Takes the Lead

November 24th, 2011 · · Games, posts No comments - Tags: , , ,

This morning I was up with the sun once again to watch the games live from the Tal Memorial. For those of you who speak Russian or are interested in a live video feed, you can follow the action with commentary here. The one decisive game from the match this morning was between Aronian and Svidler, in the currently very fashionable 4.Bf4 Grunfeld. Aronian was able to sacrifice a piece to get incredible activity for his queen, checking Svidler’s king and picking off pawns left and right. When the dust finally settled, Aronian had three pawns for the piece, and Svidler almost immediately went wrong with 49…Kc4, when Nd7 was called for.


Speaking of learning Russian, being laid up in bed for a month with a broken leg has given me a bit of free time, so I picked up a few books on the language in the hope of someday traveling to the home of Chigorin and buying a suitcase of dirt-cheap chess books from old country and deciphering them myself. In furtherance of this goal, I came across this little manual: “Russian for Chessplayers” by Hanon Russell.

I’m actually quite impressed with the content of the book, which includes a vocabulary list and sample translations from actual chess books, with a side by side of the russian and english. Since chess is such a unique language unto itself, with a finite number of terms, it’s actually not too difficult to master the basics (or so I have been told- I’ll get back to you on that.) In any case, if I have one complaint about the book, it’s that it’s too short! I feel like I could easily quadruple the size of this book if I were to edit it, simply by adding more of the same. In any case, for anyone who is interested I highly recommend it.

Seducing Women Through Chess

November 21st, 2011 · · posts No comments

This is so absurd I had to put it up on the blog. This week on Saturday Night Live, the digital short was titled “Seducing Women Through Chess,” in which a patzer tries desperately to impress girls by his prowess at various board games but manages to lose no matter what game he chooses- all set to a hip 1970′s tableau. Check it out.


Tal Memorial Snooze Fest

November 20th, 2011 · · posts 4 comments - Tags: , , , , , ,


One nice thing about being bed-ridden with a full leg cylinder cast for six weeks is that now I will be able to follow all of the cool chess events going on for the next month or so. Around the time of my birthday the London Chess Classic will kick off, which is one of the best organized events on the calendar and I can’t wait to watch it live with commentary. At the moment though the Tal Memorial is raging on… sort of. The last two rounds have featured draws on all boards, and the comments on chessbomb have been predictably acerbic. Interestingly, today several player’s achieved potentially winning positions, but later slipped back into drawing lines. When top flight tournaments feature so many draws, spectators understandably become disinterested. This phenomenon seems to be more and more common at elite chess events, prompting new rules regulating when players can agree to a draw and forcing players to fight on even in hopelessly drawn positions…(remember that tournament last year where tiviakov repeated moves 27 times?) Perhaps Fischer Random or Seirawan chess is the future of our game. It seems that opening theory is on the verge of suffocating the life out of the game…

In any case. If you’re interested in watching the games live, a live video feed is available here.

Today I watched the game between Aronian and Nakamura most closely.

Here is a picture of my poor leg in a full cast- ugh- shattered my knee in a bike accident and will be bedridden for a while… at least I still have chess.

The Lewis Chessmen Come to New York!

November 19th, 2011 · · New York Chess, posts No comments - Tags: , , ,

The Cloisters Museum in New York City has recently opened an exhibition of chess artifacts, starring the The Lewis Chessmen. The New York Times has run two articles on the exhibtion, One articleby the Art critic Ken Johnson, and another article by their regular chess columnist, Dylan Loeb McClain.

It’s thought that the pieces were likely made by “Trondheim” craftsmen in 12th century Norway, though they were discovered in Scotland and there is some controversy concerning their rightful ownership.

The pieces themselves are as aesthetically interesting as they are historically significant.
I was planning to ride my bike uptown this week and visit the museum in person in order to bring you all a bunch of iphone photos of them, but unfortunately last week I broke my leg in a bike accident and will be stuck in either bed or the hospital for the next 6 weeks. So, until I recover, I have to settle for this video tour by the NYTimes, which I found on Jim West’s blog.


NPR’s Radiolab Chats with Frank Brady

November 15th, 2011 · · Annotated Games, Games, Indian Defences, posts No comments - Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A friend of mine sent me a link to an episode of Radiolab about “games,” and a ten minute portion of the show is about chess and the concept of the theoretical novelty. Naturally, the show is made by non-chess players, and so their version of the novelty is a bit…. let’s say abstract and philosophical. In any case, it’s an interesting show. Listen to it here. It’s from Aug. 23rd, so if you’re a regular Radiolab listener you’ve likely already heard it, but if you’re not familiar with the show this might be a good introduction. My favorite part of the show was the host’s description of the Marshall Chess Club: spot. on.

In the show, Frank Brady discuses Fischer’s famous game of the century. In the office at the Marshall Chess Club, there is a large poster of the orignal scoresheet from that game that I stare at blankly occasionally, trying to wrap my mind around what it must have been like to play a move like 17…Be6.

I don’t think I’ve ever put this game up on the blog before…so I suppose I should have it up here somewhere. (Notes from Chessgames.com)

Listening to Radiolab reminded me that I hadn’t listened to the Full English Breakfast in a while. This show, their 14th, is their one year anniversary and in it they cover some great stuff in their usual snarky tone. You can hear it here.

Women’s World Chess Championship 2011

November 14th, 2011 · · Catalan, Games, posts No comments - Tags: , , ,

Today, the WWCC kicked off in Albania with a hard fought draw in an Open Catalan between Koneru and Hou.


Abbott: Who had the white pieces?
Costello: No, Hou had the black pieces.
Abbott: So, who had the white pieces?
Costello: No! … Hou had the… (you get the point.)

With Judit Polgar’s recent reentry into top-flight events, she casts a tall and long shadow over anyone who would claim to be the Women’s World Chess Champion. However, I suppose the same could be said of the Men’s World Championship- what with the highest ranked player in the world refusing to play in the candidates matches. In any case, you can watch the the games live on chessgames.com or chess bomb-

James A. Black, Jr. Featured in the New York Times

November 13th, 2011 · · Games, New York Chess, posts 5 comments - Tags: , , , , , ,

Last week, after the Marshall Chess Club’s 95th Annual Championship, I emailed Dylan Loeb McClain of the NYTimes chess column and suggested that perhaps he might include a game by the 12 year old Phenom Christopher Wu, who finished in clear second place at the MCC Championship and put up a stellar performance in order to do so. I have a feeling that this email was either ignored or unopened. However, I was pleased to see an article this morning featuring one of the games from that event, along with profiling three talented young African American masters from New York City.

Every Sunday morning before riding my bike over the williamsburg bridge to open the chess club, I hang out at Variety coffee shop in Brooklyn and read McClain’s Sunday chess column. The barista, who pulls the column out for me, often shouts out ideas over the roar of the Marzocco and Mazzer machines. Today’s column can be read in full here. In the game, Black beats Treger almost effortlessly, grabbing space and refuting his dubious opening with a mixture of king-side pressure and zen-like patience. (Treger’s defense in the game is “Tiger’s Modern.”) Black managed to finish 5th in the tournament, an impressive result for a young master at a prestigious event. I’ve known Black for about a year now in my role as Tournament Director, and I will say he is one of the nicest masters I have ever met; as genial as he is genius. He has no sense of entitlement or overbearing ego. He never makes absurd claims and is as gracious in losing as he is in winning. He is always smiling and friendly and says hello. Along with his colleagues and several other members of the Marshall, he is headed off to Brazil next week for the World Youth Championship- and we will be cheering him/them on.

Treger’s king before the game.


Treger’s king after the game.

Chess-in-the-Schools Chocolate!

November 12th, 2011 · · New York Chess, posts No comments - Tags: ,

This afternoon I was doing some shopping in Park Slope when I came across the Chocolate Room where I found an assortment of chocolate chess pieces. “100% of sales goes to support Chess-in-the-Schools” read a nearby flyer.

“What a wonderful way to raise money for a wonderful cause!” I thought to myself.

Naturally, chess does not produce much in the way of profits, and so organizations like Chess-in-the-Schools are dependent upon government funding and the support of chess loving chocolate fanatics like me to continue to exist… I suppose that’s why so many people were shocked to learn that Marley Kaplan, the organization’s executive director, earns more than a quarter million dollars a year. You can read the unfortunate financial details here. Generally speaking, I am all for high salaries for top executive talent and think that anyone who feels otherwise should just go occupy wall street about it. However, politics aside, Chess-in-the-Schools is not exactly JPMorgan. They are a lot more like NPR, I suppose. Accordingly, the gross waste of capital gained through charitable intentions and tax payer dollars is unsettling to say the least.

Having said all of the that, the Post is hardly an unbiased news source, and I would very much like to hear Marley’s side of the story, which I’m sure gives a more nuanced explanation of the finances roughly sketched out in the article. (Marley, if you’re reading this, shoot me an email and let’s set up an interview.)

In any case, the chocolate is delicious.


And for those of you interested, the last time I checked they were hiring.


Simon Williams: Attacking with the French

November 10th, 2011 · · Annotated Games, Book Review, French Defense, Games, Milner-Barry gambit, Openings, posts No comments - Tags: , , , , ,

As anyone who has picked up one knows, the new “Attacking Chess” series of books by everyman are fantastic repertoire manuals filled with interesting ideas and analysis. Hopefully, there will be more coming out soon. As readers of this blog know, Simon Williams is a bit of a hero of mine, so when I saw that he had written a book on the French I snapped up a copy posthaste. (His book on the Classical Dutch blew my mind. Also, for those of you who are interested, GM Williams has a blog! And from perusing it, I found out that he is working on two dvd’s on the Sicilian Dragon!!- can. not. wait.)

In any case, his book on the French has a few interesting ideas. Against the 3.Nd2 he gives 3 chapters worth of lines after 3…Nf6. However, since I prefer to play 3…c5, I skipped that portion of the book. His chapter on the exchange has some great games that I dare say make me excited to face the exchange. Typically, the French exchange leads to either symmetrical or mostly lifeless positions, where one side is merely waiting for the other to make a gross blunder. Naturally, for this exact reason it is wildly popular at the sub 2200 level.

The formula presented in this game is predicated on the awesome idea 9…Bf4. Once black controls so many squares on the kingside of the board, he is able to play 0-0-0 without much worry and launch a pawn avalanche. For anyone who is looking to play the French, this idea is worth its weight in gold! The exchange variation is common among players who don’t wish to take any risks and are hoping for a simple game of chess- this attacking formula is anything but, and is sound enough to work against the likes of Kasparov…


In the chapter on the Advance Variation, which is the first chapter in the book, Williams builds his repertoire around the less common 5…Bd7 instead of the mainline 5…Qb6. While I am not fully convinced by some of his double edged recommendations in this chapter, there are many ideas that did convince that 5…Bd7 offers interesting alternatives to the mainlines. Almost always, this move is played with the plan of opening the position with the break f6.

In the following game, white attempts a Milner-Barry gambit, only to find that it is black who be the one to gambit- and a knight at that.

Highly recommended! here.

Irina Krush’s Lecture at the Marshall Chess Club

November 8th, 2011 · · Annotated Games, Games, posts 2 comments - Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

So this evening I stopped by the Marshy to see a lecture by IM Krush (I can’t help but think of Big Punisher’s hit “I’m not a player I just Krush a lot.”) She covered a few games from the current European Team Championship with aplomb, nicely fitting in the recent games to the theme of the lecture: Unusual Positional Decisions.

In the first game Irina reviewed, Topalov shocked Svidler with an interesting move. In the following diagram, it is white to play. If you look at the position, you can see that black is happy with his pieces. The bishops are very well placed, and the queen is applying pressure to the kingside.

What would you play for white and why?

At a certain point in the lecture I realized there was someone sitting in the back who was being very quiet and not answering any of Irina’s questions… Kamsky?

Actually, when i first walked in I recognized him immediately and had to stop myself from saying all the gushing things any chess fan would want to say in the presence of a legend. Instead, I just got a cup of coffee and sat down across the room pondering why on earth an elite GM of his caliber would attend a run-of-the-mill chess lecture at the Marshall…

Oh right… because Irina Krush is giving the lecture… (swoon you chess nerds!)

Another game she covered involved the amazing move 20.b3! sacking the exchange. Mitch Fitsko saw this move immediately. As it turns out, the position after this sacrifice is equal, as white is able to secure his queenside and stifle black’s counter-play. However, between two human beings it goes without saying that white’s game was much easier to play. Later in the game, black missed his chance to simplify with 21…Bd7. Instead, the immediate 21…Qa5 was better. White doesn’t want to capture black’s queen and rid himself of his only weakness (the b-pawn,) and so black is able to use the a5 square to re-route the queen to h5, where she will defend against Bh6 and pressure the kingside pawns enough for an equal game. The move 21…Bd7 then was too slow, as after 22.Qc3 Qa5 23.Be2 the h5 square is covered. White when on to win in a rather straightforward way.


Taking Down the French

November 5th, 2011 · · Annotated Games, French Defense, Games, Openings, posts No comments - Tags: , , ,

Here are a couple miniatures against the French defense that I found amusing. The first one is against the legend, Mednis, who surprisingly fell into a mating attack very early in a French-Winawer. The game is taken from Asa Hoffmann’s book, Chess Gladiator which is full of such sporting miniatures and highly creative play reflective of Asa’s signature madman style.


The second game is also by Hoffmann, though this one is not in his book and is one that he shared with me one night at the Marshall Chess Club. It’s an Alekhine-Chatard attack, a variation of the French I often play against players I’m certain that they will not immediately respond with 4…dxe4, entering the morozevich-burn variation as advocated by creative madman Dzindzashvili. The Alekhine-Chatard attack is just too good to be true. White’s attack really plays itself and there are an inconceivable number of “natural” looking moves that black can play that lead to his destruction (such as an early c5 allowing Nb5! to only name one.)

In any case, the following game contains a painfully long king march that Asa claims to have spotted from move 10 on through it’s conclusion. The move 10…Nf8 is an obviously blunder. While the knight often ends up on this square in the Alekhine-Chatard, in this exact position where the tactical shot Nxd5 is available, it is clearly not correct. From move 11 on, mate is inevitable.

A Gorgeous Queen’s Indian Game

November 4th, 2011 · · Games, Indian Defences, New York Chess, posts, Queens Indian No comments - Tags: , , , , , , ,

As many of the readers of this blog know, i spend an awful lot of time at the Marshall Chess Club, and so I was thrilled to see this video on the USCF’s website in which some of our regular players talk about the club. In the video, the manager of the club says that the Marshall Chess Club is one of the most famous chess clubs in the country. However, this is a bit of an understatement, as it is actually one of the most famous chess clubs in the world!

To wit, a tourist from Sweden who was in New York on business recently stopped by the club to check out the hallowed halls where Fischer did battle as a teenager. His name was Jan Lundin, and he has recently achieved his first GM norm and was nice enough to share the game with me which proved decisive for his norm result. I thought I would share this gem with you.

In the game, the Grandmaster playing white against Lundin was angling for a win, and played a sharp gambit to try and create complications. However, black found a way to give up his queen for a decisive amount of material and handled the technical ending that resulted with aplomb. In particular, the King march which begins with 53…Kc5 is an impressive and bold plan.

GM Kekelidze is the winner of the 95th Annual Marshall Chess Club Championship

October 30th, 2011 · · New York Chess, NYC Chess Guide, NYC related posts, posts 2 comments - Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Tonight the final round of the 95th Annual Marshall Chess Club concluded and we here at Brooklyn64 congratulate GM Kekelidze on becomming the 2011 Marshall Chess Club Champion. Here are complete crosstables for the event. In the final round, the 12 year old Wu needed only to draw to clinch the championship, but lost a tough positional battle to FM Ostrovskiy who managed to succeed with an interesting queenside plan against Wu’s Najdorf. Up until the last round, Wu had been a likely contender for clear first, and so the following game was closely watched by hundreds of spectators on ICC.

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An Interesting Attacking Plan in the Scandinavian

October 5th, 2011 · · Annotated Games, Games, New York Chess, Openings, posts, Scandinavian 2 comments - Tags: , , , , ,

This last weekend I played a small round robbin in Greenpoint under the auspices of Brooklyn64, and played the following game with my friend Paul Munson. He knew that I liked to play the Scandinavian with 3…Qd6, and so avoided this variaiton by delaying Nc3. I showed the game to Mitch Fitsko, who suggested an interesting attacking idea. The attacking idea is so quick and deadly it reminds me of the Finnish sniper Simo Hayha- a.k.a. “White Death,” who single handedly killed 542 Russian Soldiers during the “Winter War” with the Soviet Union. He supposedly kept snow in his moth to hide his breath from other snipers, and has to have been one of the most deadly snipers in history. In any case-this quick trigger plan in the scando is just as deadly…

The idea involves a quick queenside castle and all out assault on white after the passive Nf3, and Be2 response to the scando- an example would be after the moves- 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.Be3 Nc6 5.d4 0-0-0… giving us the following position:

Following is my game with Paul Munson, in which both of us played remarkably passively, yet I luckily still managed to win as paul made a mistake in time trouble. It seemed to me as though he should have played Ne5 sometime early in the middle game, and follow up with f4 clamping down on the center of the board.

Another theme in the game is the battle for control over the d5 square. Naturally, in the e6, c6 Caro-Kann pawn structure, if white can attack by simply pushing d5, then black is likely in trouble.

The Cocksure Cochrane Gambit

October 3rd, 2011 · · 1. e4 e5, Games, Openings, Petroff Defense, posts, sidelines 2 comments - Tags: , , , ,

After losing a game recently to the Petroff, I decided to forgo the sideline that had only ever brought me spotty success for the whacky Cochrane Gambit. For those of you aren’t familiar, it occurs after the moves: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nxf7 Kxf7 5.d4…

White gives up a knight for two pawns and to draw black’s king out into the open. Current theory frowns on the variation, but there are a few GM’s who have bagged some beautiful victories with it, such as Vitolins, who played it regularly, and Sulskis more recently.

In any case, below find some instructive games, along with some theoretical material for the brave among you who want to give this a shot.



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