Quality Chess Blog

Hi guys! Back from holiday and ready to look at when the books will be ready. As you will no doubt understand, we have a lot of responsibilities, so sadly not everything has worked out exactly as I have wanted it. The good news is that Michael Roiz has finished his draft of Grandmaster Repertoire – The Nimzo-Indian. The sad news is that we cannot finish editing it before the Olympiad, so it will have to wait till after Baku. This delays it with a few weeks. It will be out in October only. Sorry.

This is the current list of what is coming… It is VERY UNOFFICIAL with the exception of the accurate dates.

During XtraCon Open in Helsingor, Boris and I enjoyed a bit too much of the free buffet food (gosh I look fat; luckily the diet has already begun) and a two hour lecture about the writing of Positional Decision Making in Chess. No spoilers from the book though… All of it was original material.

During XtraCon Open in Helsingor, Denmark, I got to spend some time together with Boris Gelfand, face to face, for the first time since the Tromso Olympiad. Since then we have written two books together.

The most important thing we did was of course to get around to answer all of your questions. It took a little longer than we expected (Boris refused to be effective, wanted to be generous with his time instead), but anyway, here are the two videos.

I was not sure if I should mention people by name. I decided against it, as it gave me the freedom to rephrase the questions at time. Hope getting them answered was the main thing!

Last week’s poll question was ‘Do you have any chess superstitions?’ In general, you do not, but many are fortunate enough to own a lucky pen.

The Russian Federation has proposed (link to pdf of proposal) to reintroduce the World Championship rules from a decade ago, that allowed Vladimir Kramnik to challenge Veselin Topalov for, and win, the FIDE World Championship title, thus unifying the two titles into one. Another match was also planned between Radjabov and Topalov, but was abandoned when Topalov lost his title.
 
As this Chessdom article explains, the proposal is that “anyone guaranteeing a required prize-fund can challenge the reigning World Champion.” Another key part of the proposal is that FIDE takes 50% of the prize fund.
 
We have our personal thoughts on this, but would like to know your thoughts. In a world where chess is struggling to find millions for the match at the end of the cycle, but where some sponsors from (for example) Azerbaijan, the US, Armenia, Russia and France might be able to find sponsors for a challenge from their local hero, does it make sense for FIDE to solve part of their solvency problems by adding an additional World Championship match to their cycle or is this taking the wildcard phenomenon too far? It could also lead to more matches that are dramatic and fun to watch.
 
We presume that the World Champion will have the right to accept or decline such a match; just as we presume (in this poll!) that everything would happen in a reasonable and intelligent way…

Sorry guys, it has been really really hard for Boris and myself to get our calendars to work in tune. The time we have had has all gone towards finishing Dynamic Decision Making in Chess which will go to the printer tomorrow and be out on August 31. (The exception is that it will be on sale at Copenhagen Open at the end of July, where Boris and I will give a lecture).

So, what is happening is this: Boris and I will go through all the questions at Copenhagen Open, in front of a video camera and we will post a video then. You can ask us questions all the way till the 24th of July. I will look through them after then and we will spend probably up to an hour doing the Q & A at the tournament, as well as some footage from the lecture.

I am trying all I can for you guys, but it has not been possible. But in July it definitely will be.

Last week’s question was: ‘Who was the best player never to become World Champion?’ Our clear winner was Korchnoi, ahead of Rubinstein and Keres. Was it an impossible question? Probably. How can we compare players from different eras? Not well, but luckily there is no harm done if we get it ‘wrong’. For what it’s worth, I voted for Korchnoi. Ask me again next week and I’d probably vote for Rubinstein.

Nakamura took first place in the combined rapid and blitz event in Paris at the start of the Grand Chess Tour. In the blitz tournament Topalov was beating Nakamura with Black in an endgame, but then made the mistake of not promoting his pawn as it went to the first row. Nakamura claimed the point, the players shook hands and life went on. No dispute, as the video shows.

However, the Internet has a life of its own and over the last week there has been absolutely no focus on Topalov, a former World Champion, not abiding by the simple rules, but lots of focus on whether or not it was sporting of Nakamura to claim the full point. The punishment seems excessive.

People are arguing that it can be compared to being punished going 61 km/h in a 60-zone in the same way as going 120. I have personally received a £50 fine for gently rolling across a traffic light on my bicycle, going 5 km/h while the lights were green for pedestrians, of which there were none. The same fine for going through a red light, speeding, in a car. So, I understand why that would be painful. But traffic is not sport.

Nor is it a morality play. In the 1990s I played a lot of blitz tournaments in Copenhagen, every Friday night. Whenever people promoted a pawn and failed to put in a piece, I would point out that I could claim the point, and then I would play on. This happened maybe ten times, before I made the mistake myself. Obviously my opponent claimed the point instantly. It taught me an important lesson.

To me sportsmanship is to play by the rules. There are rules about how to behave, not to disturb the opponent, putting the pieces fully on the right square, which hand to push the clock with. And so on. There are also rules for illegal moves. In blitz it means you lose. Even if you take the king instead of claiming a win. I personally dislike this rule, but on behalf of John Shaw, I have been asked if we can do something about outlawing knight forks first…

Or maybe you disagree?

Q: Was it right of Nakamura to claim the full point in the game against Topalov?

1) Yes. Nakamura was of course lucky, but playing according to the rules is sportsmanship.

2) No. The rule is excessive and the sporting decision would be to press back the clock and continue the game.

Last week’s poll proved what we suspected: you are mainly chess players, not board game players.

One of the best things we ever did in Quality Chess was to start this blog. We had no real plans for it, and just did it because our website manager asked if we wanted one. The communication with people who know of our work is truly inspiring. I think one of the reasons is that it is quite rare we use the blog to promote our books. It feels bad, but at times I think we have to do it…

I really like the polls and the discussions. I want to know what other people think. I do not become a better writer and publisher from listening to my own thoughts. Some results have been truly surprising. Some not.

I was wondering: is there anything you think we should put on the poll? Any wacky (or sensible) question about chess you would like debated? If so, let us know and in time we might use it!

This week we will go non-chess for the poll. It’s football/soccer: Who will win Euro 2016?

After pleading for a year (at least) on your behalf, I have talked Boris Gelfand into doing a Q&A with the readers of the Quality Chess blog. It will work like this:

Put your questions in comments to this post by the end of Sunday 29th May. Boris and I will then agree on a day when we will go through them, and he will answer most of them. Please keep the questions brief, as we will not have time to read long blocks of text to get to your question. And please make them simple comprehensible questions. Thanks.