Quality Chess Blog

All four editors at Quality Chess were playing this weekend.

Andrew Greet scored 2/2 in the 4NCL and John Shaw likewise in the Danish League. Jacob scored 1.5/2 and Colin mumbled his result and did not answer when asked a second time.

The 4NCL can be found at www.4NCL and the Danish League at http://www.divisionsskak.dk/holdarkiv/div1011/vis_rakke_tabel.asp?find=LIGA

Jacob’s win over IM Karsten Rasmussen bears good news for followers of the Tarrasch Defence:

1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 c5 3. c4 e6 4. e3 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. cxd5 exd5 7. Be2 Nc6 8. O-O
Bd6 9. dxc5 Bxc5 10. b3 O-O 11. Bb2 Re8 12. Rc1 Ba7 13. Qd3 Bg4 14. Rfd1 Qe7
15. Na4? Ne4

Also winning was: 15… Nb4 16. Qb1 Bxe3!

16. a3 Nxf2 17.Kxf2 Bxe3+ 18. Kf1 Bxf3 19. Bxf3 Qh4 20. Rc2 Qxh2 21. Ke2 Bd4+

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I am at times asked how reliable our books are, and at what level they can be used. I have to bite my tongue, because what I really wanted to say in such a situation is that player X, rated 2700+ has just bought the books on our website – and most likely not to put under the Christmas three. Peter Heine Nielsen said about some of our books that they were “of use even at the highest level.” He is the chief second of the World Champion, so it is easy to read things into such a statement. One player you could easily suspect of having read our books is English Grandmaster Luke McShane. In this game he follows the recommendation of GM Mihail Marin in Grandmaster Repertoire 5 as a stepping stone to beat the World number one. Whatever I say hereafter, I feel I can say it with full confidence…

Luke McShane – Magnus Carlsen [A37]

London Chess Classic, 1^st Round, 08.12.2010

1.c4 c5 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.Nf3 d6 6.0–0 Nh6

A sideline, but still a serious Read more…

After having worked for us as a freelancer for years, former World Team Champion in problem solving, GM Colin McNab has decided to join Quality Chess as a full time editor from December. With lots of projects on the way, we badly needed extra hands, and got not only this, but also the remarkable skills Colin posses.

Short term, this is what we are working on at the moment:

Quality Chess has joined the arms race and purchased a super computer, kindly assembled by Phil Harris. Our new machine is running at many times the speed of our quad core standard machines and needs a water cooling system to not overheat. Hopefully this will increase the level of our analysis for the future.

I wanted to show you a photo of how the water cooling looks inside, but it was quite low quality and I can’t be bothered to open it again. Sorry.

Update: Photo of the innards of the fancy new computer:

During the World Championship match between Topalov and Anand I annotated a game for Chess Today. As my deadline was later than the quickly published annotations on ChessBase.com by GM Anish Giri, it would have been unnatural not to relate to these. So, in the two hours at my disposal, I tried to form a personal opinion based on his annotations, and on things I noticed individually. Now, half a year later, Giri has published an open letter for Yearbook 96, where he says I am wrong in almost everything. His lines are very interesting, but not completely accurate.

I will go into details about his claims in our next newsletter, likely to come out in a week or so, when John and Andrew are back and rested, but for now I want to point to a few moments for those that have seen the article.

Line 1 After 18.Nxf5 has a nice improvement with 18…Qf6, but his claim later that I have to show variations to disagree with his reading of a computer evaluation after 18…Qc5 19.axb5 cxb5 20.Qd4 Qc7. I could say 21.Bh3! and the computer is supporting White again. This way we could use a decade to get to the truth, making two full moves a year… I have done some analysis and I cannot see that Black is ever equal. Besides, I think 18.exf5 is maybe the better move.

Line 2 looks strange. What went wrong? What was I thinking? I have no idea.

Line 3 has a nice improvement on move 39. Long analysis often have mistakes. Probably I was too eager to find something that kept Black in the game.

Line 4 is interesting, as he says I am wrong overall, but states that I did improve on his analysis in the details. However, his 24.Qc3 line is not accurate.

In the “final” position after 24…Qd7 25.Rd4 e5 26.Nxh6+ gxh6 27.R4xd3 Nxd3 28.Rxd3 White does have the advantage, but after some analytical work I found a sort of defence for Black with 28…Rfd8 29.Qxe5 Qe6 30.Qf4 f6!?. That the position is winning is not obvious, although it is better for White. But 24…Qd7 is just a howler. 25.Rxd3 leads to a winning advantage if you look deep enough. So, Black has to try 24…Rab8!?, when there are some very complicated variations, clearly favouring White. If this is better than a pawn up in an ending is not obvious to me.

last night at the gym I caused a bit of a stir. I returned to my locker and found that once I unlocked it, there was nothing inside. I call the manager and he started checking all the locks to see if anyone by chance had the same code. 10 minutes later we were back where we started. I asked, what do you usually do in this situation? Check everything before we believe the worst, he replied. As for example checking the empty… Oops, is that your stuff? So, I had locked the empty locker next to my stuff. And it was all there, passport, money, blackberry, cards, secret novelties in the Sicilian, dirty books where the king is stripped bare. Surely you were mortified, a friend asked later. No, not at all. I burst out laughing. We always say, one day we will laugh at this. I always try to make sure that this one day is today…

I am proud to have won the 2010 ECF Book of the Year award for Attacking Manual 1 – 2nd edition and Attacking Manual 2. The reason why I did not originally write this project for Everyman despite a very nice offer, but set up Quality Chess instead, was that I wanted it to be perfect – and that I wanted to win this prize. This is the biggest achievement of my career by far.

English Chess Federation

BOOK of the YEAR 2010

The judges this year were faced with a particularly difficult choice as all the four books listed had considerable, but differing merits. The choice finally fell on a two volume work which had taken the author no less than eight years to write.

The book is Attacking Chess Volumes 1 and 2 by Jacob Aagaard, published by Quality Chess at £23.99 each.  These constitute a substantial work totalling 720 pages in all, excellently laid out and printed. The volumes are written in a lively manner, which keeps the reader entertained as well as interested.

The genesis of the book is found in the introduction to volume 1. Aagaard felt that the role of intuition had been undervalued in chess writing. Good players not only calculate but also have a feeling for what might be possible in a given position, which can be described as intuition. Aagaard also felt that there was a shortage of good books on attacking play –by which he means attacking the King. There are many excellent titles on combinations, but Aagaard is looking for the conditions when an attack may be possible (King in the middle is an obvious example) and how that attack may be prepared and prosecuted. In other words Aagaard is trying to develop the reader’s attacking intuition.

Volume 2 is, in the words of the author “what to do when the attack is up and running”.

Whilst doing this, Aagaard introduces new concepts and ideas into the text. To help in this process he gives preview diagrams of the positions to be discussed, which the reader is invited to consider before reading on, a valuable learning tool.

The author has obtained the games and positions for both volumes from a wide range of contemporary sources, many of which were new to the judges. It is also clear that throughout Aagaard has provided fresh commentary and analysis. The reader can simply enjoy the many fascinating positions or study in depth, but either way there are many hours of pleasure to be found in these two books.

Aagaard has written a significant and original treatise on the fine art of attacking play and is a worthy winner of the Book of the Year 2010.

R B Edwards  J Farrand  D Friedgood 27th September 2010

Because GM5 is “only” 280 pages, I have decided to cut the price down to 24.99 for the softcover and 32.99 for hardback edition. Those that have pre-paid will receive a refund of the 3 euro difference somewhere in the next few weeks. The reason this does not happen immediately, is because I have to work out how to do it!