Tag: Jan Gustafsson

Upsets at the World Cup

September 5th, 2011 · · -, Annotated Games, Endgame, Games, Open Ruy Lopez, Ruy Lopez, Semi-Slav No comments - Tags: , , , , , , ,

(left: Polgar sisters as child prodigies playing 3D Risk)

In the Sunday NYTimes, FM Dylan Loeb McClain has a column where he covers the hot novelties and interesting chess tidbits that addicted chess fanatics such as myself crave. This last Sunday, while at Variety coffee shop slamming a stumptown ‘spro at 8a.m. before biking to the Marshall Chess Club, I picked up his column and saw this article. Sam Shankland upset Peter Leko at the World Cup- who could have seen that coming. It goes without saying that at No. 19 in the World, Leko is an elite GM. Thus, beating him with the black pieces is a major achievement for our own S. Shankland. The game is a Semi-Slav, which arrives at a curious position where Black’s pieces shuffle on the 3 ranks while white appears to have a better position for most of the game. Then, like an avalanche, Black’s kingside pawns start rolling forward and block out white’s dark square bishop, leaving black with a golden knight that is centrally placed. The game is nothing short of a positional masterpiece from the young American.

In my last post I think I lamented how most GM’s don’t have their own websites in an era where shameless self-promotion has become more than socially acceptable – almost mandated- but it turns out I spoke too soon. Sam Shankland has a site of his own here, and it’s not bad actually! Granted it isn’t a 20 thousand Euro website the way that Jan Gustafsson’s appears to be, but it isn’t an early 1990′s GeoCities looking chess website either, so kudos Sam.

Another upset which caught my eye was Judit Polgar eliminating the top seeded Karjakin in the World Cup. The masterful endgame is nicely analyzed over at ChessVibes (for no charge- believe it or not!)

Apparently, after having some babies Judit is back in action and gunning for an elite top spot again. How amazing would it be to see her in the candidates next time around? Having a female World Champion could give a lot of good publicity to chess and perhaps entice more women to play in general- like a gender specific Bobby Fischer effect. There’s no question that if any woman on the planet has a shot it’s Judit.

ok chess geeks -swoon-

If that game was juicy enough- in their second game Judit whipped out the Ruy Lopez Open as black to drawn (Swoon again!).

As those of you who follow this blog know, we have a bit of a love affair with the Ruy Lopez Open- check it out- I have all three Chess Informant Monographs on the subject by the hero of line himself!!

Naturally, the following game demonstrates Polgar’s ability to control the position and hold the draw.

I have to admit- despite all of the shenanigans her sister has been involved with here concerning the USCF (and I won’t mention specifics as I don’t want to be sued for defamation – ugh- ) i’m still a fan of Judit and wish her well.

ein Geshenk von Nikola

September 4th, 2011 · · -, Annotated Games, English Opening, Games, Reti No comments - Tags: , , , , , ,

So this summer I was stuck in New York while most of my friends went to far away places, returning with stories of long distance bike touring, late night parties and proof that everywhere else is better than here. While I battled hurricanes and earthquakes, they were drinking strong beer on the continent and bronzing themselves on far away beaches.


Luckily, one of my friends took pity on me and brought me back an awesome chess journal from abroad: Schach: deutsch schachzeitung 8.

This little ‘zine is packed with interviews, games, articles, and – I daresay – journalism. I’m going to see if I can get a subscription somehow here in the states. One interesting article was an interview with the awesome Jan Gustafsson, who runs one of the best chess blogs on the internet. As an aside, it’s strange that more GM’s don’t have websites with commentary.

In any case, one whacky game that caught my eye from the magazine (perhaps a bad example as most of the games analyzed in the ‘zine were of a very high quality) was the following one.

The move from this game which caught my eye was not the early h4, h5 (where was this played, Washington Square Park?) but rather the push by white c5! It’s an idea which isn’t new at all, but which is new to me. I first encountered it in Wojo’s Weapons Volume 2, in which Dean Ippolito gives a number of fantastic lines for white against the Kings Indian Defense. One such line was the following: 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 0-0 5.d4 d6 6.0-0 Nc6 7.Nc3 e5 8.d5 Ne7 9.c5!? giving the following position:

the idea behind this early pawn push is in its most cursory explanation to attack black on the queenside before black has time for kingside expansion and a straightforward KID style attack. If dxc5 is simply terrible- it goes without saying- after 9…Ne8 10.cxd6 cxd6 white has the ability to seize control of the c-file, and gain space on the queenside quickly with plans like Qd1-Qb3, and a4,a5 etc. This plan is nastier than it looks and is so simple that it’s almost scandalous how well it works in practice. Naturally, black should try 10.Nxd6, but the resulting position is hardly the straightforward KID that most practitioners of this line had envisioned. That little kernel of chess knowledge brought to you by Dean Ippolito’s Wojo’s weapons- two books that I highly recommend for the Catalan player.

Interestingly, today I met a gentleman at the Marshall chess club who was from Poland and claimed to have worked with Wojo a long time ago- and also to be the programmer behind “swiss perfect,” the main competitor of Swiss Sys, the tournament pairing software commonly used in the U.S. to run major tournaments. He had a handful of interesting anecdotes to share- one which I did not know was that Wojo himself was a second to Tal at a young age.

Back to Schach-

another game from Schach: Deutschland Zeitung which caught my eye was the following gem between two Americans- Lenderman and Kamsky.