Quality Chess Blog

We are coming close to finishing a lot of books at the same time currently, leading to a more optimistic and more precise than usual publishing schedule.

Obviously, with January publications, the general problem is that the printer is busy most of December with Christmas catalogues and other seasonal items that really cannot wait as much as a chess book can.

The Soviet Chess Primer and The Modern Tiger are both with the printers. Excerpts are available here: SCP and MT.

Chess Structures – A Grandmaster Guide will be typeset next week. When the printer will be able to print it, we will see. But hopefully before the New Year or at least as the first thing back from the Christmas Holidays.

We are far with the editing of the second volume of Negi’s series, which will be about 400 pages, I think and 1.e4 vs. The Sicilian Volume 1 will be by far the most complex book in the series. We are also more than half way in the editing of the two volumes from Vassilios Kotronias on the Mar del Plata variation of the King’s Indian.  These three books will be ready at the end of January or the start of February. It will be close.

The Hardback edition of Learn from the Legends will be done when someone needs a break or has finished something. It is a priority, but we gave up on the 10 years to the date idea some time ago. It just felt less important than bringing new books out. Some will disagree, others will be happy. But at least it is coming out and with a new chapter on Carlsen as well as some minor corrections all over the place.

The only thing that really has moved (as far as we are concerned) is the Gelfand book. Boris is playing the Mind Games event in China and it is just too tight with 2-3 days to get it done before then. Most of the book is written and edited and I am happy with the result. It has been very challenging to write this book (separate considerations revealed in a separate blog post in a few days’ time), but I am happy with how it is turning out.

The Semi-Slav is far advanced. A few things still need to be analysed deeply and finished. More on that in that piece as well.

All in all, we are working very hard, but the books coming out are better than we usually are able to make them. I am very happy with this list of coming books.

If there is a book you expected to see on this list that is not on it, it just means that it is outside the horizon. Writers unfortunately do not coordinate well and they have a tendency to finish the books at the same time at least as much as with a nice well-spaced interval between them. So, sometimes we have to run faster. This is one of those times.

The books exist. They will come. Don’t despair. We are doing all we can.

I was helping a friend learn the five basic steps of a tennis forehand this morning. The first thing to get under control is the grip. It has always amazed me that our coaches in the club have not helped us punters hold the racket correctly. And as a result lots of people hold the racket more as an axe than a frying pan. It is simply too unnatural a grip (and resulting swing). Basically, we have to override the instinctive way of doing things and install a different way of doing things.

The same happens in chess over and over again. I could give a lot of examples of this phenomenon. Today’s example is one of inactivity.

Areshchenko – Inarkiev, Baku 2014

69…h3+!? 70.Kh2!

70.Kxh3? Ke2 71.Re7+ Kf3 72.Re3+ Kxf2 73.Rd3 Ke2

And Black wins.

70…Ke2 71.Re7+ Kxf2 72.Rd7 Ke1

72…Ke2 73.Re7+ Kd3 74.Rd7+ and nothing happens.

73.Re7+ Kd1 74.Rd7 Rf5 75.Re7 Rf3 76.Rd7 Rf4

White to play

Read more…

It seems that some people are even getting optimistic on Anand’s behalf! 37.57% average estimate. Well, crowds are assumed to hold a collected intelligence, but still. That much?!

Working on Boris Gelfand’s book Positional Decision Making in Chess, I came across a rather fascinating combination in one of the notes to his beautiful win against Grischuk in Beijing last year. The game deals a lot with changes in pawn structure, but at this point, White has won the strategic battle, fixing the f5-pawn as a weakness. But Black has tried to mess things up with 33…Nb5!?.

White to win

This one will take a while to solve, even for a GM!

Read more…

I have taken the consequence of having retired from professional chess. In the Danish league I now represent Øbro Skakforening, a Copenhagen Club I frequented a lot in the 1990s and even played for a single season in the second division. It has felt as my spiritual home for decades and now I have returned – with absolutely no funding. Actually I am the biggest amateur of the club, having paid more for playing the first two rounds than the rest of the guys will pay for playing the whole season.

In the first round I had planned to be Black against the Evans Gambit in round one against Jonny Hector. Instead our game started 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bf4 Bf5!. I actually got a decent position, though he failed to play 4.g4, but instead went for 4.f3. In the end we had our first draw in a rated game with ups and downs.

In second round I drew a bizarre game against Mads Andersen where the engines see everything entirely differently than us. I might put it in a later newsletter as there is some theoretical importance to it.

But sadly the games are not yet available on www.skak.dk, as I wanted to give two examples from our match in the second round.  In both cases my team mates had great winning chances.

FM Søren Bech Hansen – GM Daniel Semescen

Read more…

I personally do not think Anand has a real chance against Carlsen. What does this mean? I voted for 10%. People overall voted for 32.7%. Generally the masses are quite clever, so I shall not second guess.

Nigel Short is one of the greatest characters in the Chess World as well as one of the truly great players of the last 20 years. On top of this his writing has at times been some of the best seen in chess. First for various newspapers and more recently with always interesting and thought-provoking columns in New in Chess Magazine.

I am actually such a great fan of Nigel that I asked him to be the patron for the chess club I run at Fettes College in Edinburgh, the Nigel Short Chess Society. In the near future I hope that he will come to give simuls and lectures in Scotland, partly sponsored by QC.

One great thing about Nigel is that he does not seek agreement or appeasement. I am continuously frustrated by the way people take personal offence, just because you inform them that their opinions are rubbish! Nigel does not belong to this camp, as you can see through the way he writes about friends and foes alike, criticising what he finds worthy of criticism wherever he finds it.

However, I have taken objection with a few of his “Short stories” columns in New in Chess. One had nothing to do with me, but was distasteful in my opinion, while the most recent one actually mentions me by name, although I have to add, as a positive! Still I feel it allows me to comment on it.

The article is a mix of oldie goldies from Nigel, about British Chess and so on, with an added bit about the referendum. It is also full of plain nonsense.

First of all, there is something particularly funny about a citizen of Athens, Greece, commenting on the actions of a Londoner’s (Jonathan Rowson) actions during the Scottish referendum. I would have preferred that both of them stayed the f… away, since they have chosen not to suffer the consequences of an independent Scotland. Probably Nigel and I are on the same side there.

We are also on the same side when it comes to the odd situation of British Chess having five (5!) Olympiad Teams and federations. It is the way things turned out, is the only real argumentation for it. But it is certainly not the fact that Scotland sends GMs to the Olympiad that drags the level down there. Nigel’s old view is that he would have liked Rowson in his team and to have played for Scotland. But in identity, Nigel is British and Jonathan Scottish. Funny that, the English who took over the Scots feel we are one land, while the Scots see it in a more dualistic light.

My real objection comes when Nigel displays his inability to do research. He misspells the name of our First Minister Alex Salmond (pronounced, not spelled Alec), he claims Scotland is not a Nation, displaying a lack of understanding between the difference of a nation and a nation state. Add to this low-blow insinuations that the Scottish players are jealous of the English prizes at the British Championship, without actually talking to us about the history behind the departure from the tournament after 2007 of all top Scottish players (by no agreement between us). Finally, a completely underfunded Commenwealth Championship in Glasgow is criticised for not inviting enough English players, when in reality hardly anyone of any nation were invited. If you go back to previous Scottish Championships, you can see a plethora of English players. I feel a need to defend Alex McFarlane here (yes, pronounced Alec), who works for no money organising and arbiting at both the Scottish and British Championships to the benefit of myself, Nigel and many strong players from all of Britain.

I am tempted to say that it goes on and on, but luckily the article is only two pages. But this does not free it from its main crime. It is slightly boring and not up to usual standards, as anyone can see if they go to previous issues. And in reality, this is the only crime that matters – and I am sure – the only criticism Nigel could ever feel worthy of taken personal. Maybe he will review one of my books in a future issue, immolating me with his withering wit?

I have been doing the Monday training blogs for about a year, sort of training myself to write THINKING INSIDE THE BOX, which I hope will be my best book yet. I am starting to feel ready to give that project a full swing, which also means that I will not be writing more of those blog posts in 2015.

We will do some other things in order to make the blog interesting, as well as keep you informed on what we will be doing with new books and so on.

It has been fun, now let’s try something else :-).