Quality Chess Blog

As the blog poll predicted two weeks ago, Magnus Carlsen won the London Classic. With three rounds to go, Magnus had drawn all his games and I was doubting the wisdom of crowds, but a 2½/3 finish and a playoff win proved you right.

Last week’s question was: How do you meet 1.d4? To my surprise, the Grünfeld edged out the KID, Nimzo and Slav. Are there really more Grünfeld than KID players among our readers, or are the Grünfelders just more fanatical about clicking the vote button? Who knows.

So far this has been John writing, but now Jacob takes over with this week’s poll question: Which chess engine is best?

Our friends at Komodo are able to celebrate another great victory. There are a lot of good engines out there at the moment, with Stockfish and Johnny being the main ones, having surpassed the likes of Houdini and Rybka a long time ago (Rybka and Fritz15 are now one and the same as far as I can understand. I do not know how strong it is).

Komodo beat Stockfish by 53.5-46.5 or 8-1 if you like, in a 100-game match. You can read more here.

Does this actually answer our question? Nope! But I hope someone will do so in the comments section below…

Last week’s question was: “Who will win the London Classic?” I expected a clear majority for Magnus Carlsen, and he did indeed top the poll, but it was a narrow win ahead of Levon Aronian. With only 3 rounds completed, it is too early to say who will win the Classic, but Not-Topalov appears a safe bet.

This week I continue my quest to learn all about our readers’ opening repertoires. I already asked what you play against 1.e4, so this week it’s: How do you meet 1.d4? The options that spring to my mind are: King’s Indian Defence, Grünfeld, Nimzo-Indian (plus something against 3.Nf3 and 3.g3), QGA, QGD, Slav, Semi-Slav, or Other.

As ever, please use the comments box to say what you mean by Other, or anything else that’s on your mind.

Last week’s poll “What’s the matter with Magnus?” ended in a narrow win for “Lack of Motivation” but “Nothing – it’s variance” seemed in the lead for most of the week. Clearly, opinions vary on this question.

This week, big time chess returns to the UK, with the London Classic kicking off on Friday. So an obvious question: Who will win the 2015 London Classic?

Maybe Magnus will show his true power? There are ten stars to chose from, and no weak links in this all-play-all. Note the names are listed with their pairing number: 1-5 will get five Whites, while 6-10 will get only four, just in case that affects your deliberations.

1. Veselin Topalov
2. Alexander Grischuk
3. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
4. Fabiano Caruana
5. Viswanathan Anand
6. Michael Adams
7. Levon Aronian
8. Magnus Carlsen
9. Hikaru Nakamura
10. Anish Giri

There are plenty of other interesting competitions in London in addition to the Classic, in particular the lavishly-funded British Knockout Chess Championship. My pick of the first-round clashes would be Scottish Number 1 Jonathan Rowson against Quality Chess author Gawain Jones.

Nigel Short unfortunately had to withdraw from the Knockout; his replacement, GM Nick Pert, mentioned that even if he was knocked out in the first round, the £2500 he would win would still be his biggest ever chess prize.

The Knockout games start at 10.30 am on Tuesday.

Two weeks ago the poll predicted a Russian victory in the European Team Championship in Reykjavík. You were right about that, so your overwhelming vote for “The rest is a matter of technique” as the most annoying chess-writing cliché is probably right too.

The comments also produced plenty of interesting “Others”. Too many to note all of them individually, but a couple in particular caught my eye.

Starting with “Better is…” is annoying and unnatural. I must have used this phrase a thousand times without noticing the problem, but I see your point.

“Strategical” is not a word, claims Wulfgar – I would say that if people use it, then it’s a word, but it seems to mean the same as “strategic” while pointlessly using two extra letters.

For this week’s poll I will return to Iceland. World Champion Magnus Carlsen had, by his own stratospheric standards, a poor tournament – a TPR of ‘only’ 2670. This was the third-best TPR in the Norwegian team, after Jon Ludwig Hammer and Aryan Tari. Firstly, congratulations to my 4ncl teammate Aryan who, at age 16, became Norway’s 12th Grandmaster.

But what’s the matter with Magnus? Options include “Lack of motivation” – he is already the World Champion, and has had the highest-ever rating.

Or maybe he prefers playing for himself, rather than a team. If you don’t believe there’s such a thing as a ‘great team player’, then consider Gabriel Sargissian, who delivered a 2800 performance for Armenia, as is traditional.

Or maybe there’s nothing wrong with Magnus, and it’s just natural variation – he’s not a machine.

I will include “Other” to cover everything from ‘distractions in his personal life’ to the fact that his star sign is Sagittarius.

Today is the official publication day of Parimarjan Negi’s 1.e4 vs The Sicilian II.

In our terms, that means it’s the day the new books will arrive at specialist chess shops. Some websale customers will already have received their books. If you bought on our site and haven’t received your book yet, then it’s in the post. As ever, we will be interested to know what you think of the book.

Parimarjan was in action in a mixed-format match against Hou Yifan last week. The result was 11–7 to the Chinese star, but Parimarjan had his chances, and even lost one on time in a dead drawn position, after being winning earlier. The biggest gap was in Fischer Random, which was won 3.5–0.5 by Hou Yifan.

No opening prep can help in Fischer Random, but Parimarjan did put some ideas from his book into action in the other games, including the following line against a rare but clever variation of the Accelerated Dragon. The following is a blitz game so I shall not analyse it in depth.

Parimarjan Negi – Hou Yifan

USA 12/11/15

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 O-O 8.Bb3 Re8

Negi devotes a whole chapter to this rare move. “This rook move is incredibly subtle, which is why it has almost exclusively been played by really strong players.” You’ll need to read Negi’s explanation of the points of 8…Re8 to understand why he is so impressed by this move.

Read more…

I played a couple of games of chess last weekend in the first rounds of the 4ncl in Birmingham. This is newsworthy because, before this, my most recent competitive game was the final round of last season’s 4ncl, six months ago. My inactivity is due, in part, to being busy with work, including nearing a finish to a Playing 1.e4 book.

Through bad luck of the draw, my opponent on Saturday was IM Sam Collins of Ireland. I say bad luck, because when I make a 600-mile round trip from Glasgow to Birmingham, I would rather play someone I haven’t played before, not an old friend. I will just show the end of the game, though analysing the earlier parts of the rook ending could fill a book.

John Shaw – Sam Collins

4ncl 14.11.2015

50.Ra8
A small crowd had gathered as this was one of the last games to finish. I later learned one of the spectators thought I had put my rook en prise to the black pawn. Which way are the pawns going?

50…Rc2
A sneaky try to block the a-file using a check on c6 first.
The simple approach allows White to draw by a tempo. For example: 50…Kb3 51.h6 Kb2 52.h7 a1Q 53.Rxa1 Kxa1 54.Kg7 b5 55.g5 b4 56.g6 b3 57.h8Q Rxh8 58.Kxh8 b2 59.g7 b1Q Not a check. 60.g8Q=

51.Rxa2
This felt like an only move, and is the most practical choice, but allowing the black pawn to queen would also draw, as my tandem get close enough to prevent Black making progress.

51.g5 Rc6+ 52.Kh7 Ra6 53.Rxa6 bxa6 54.g6 a1Q 55.g7= (55.h6=) 55…Qb1+ 56.Kh6! Qc1+ 57.Kh7 Qc2+ 58.Kh6 Qd2+ 59.Kh7 Qd3+ 60.Kh6 Qe3+ 61.Kh7 Qe4+ 62.Kh6 Qf4+ 63.Kh7 Qf5+ 64.Kh6 Qf6+ 65.Kh7 A set-up to remember: Black cannot win. 65…Qf7 66.h6 (Even 66.Kh6 works. 66…Qg8 67.Kg6 Kc5 68.h6=) 66…Kc5 67.Kh8 Qf6 68.Kh7=

Or similarly: 51.h6=

51…Rxa2 52.h6 Kc5

Read more…

One of the challenges of writing about chess is avoiding tedious repetition (as I may have said before…) but there are only so many ways to say: “White has an edge due to his bishop pair.”

So this week’s poll question is: Name your least favourite chess writing cliché.

My candidates are: “The rest is a matter of technique”, “Study-like”, “The bishop is biting on granite”, “Passed pawns must be pushed”, “The threat is stronger than the execution” and “Knight on the rim is dim”.

I know “Other” will be a wide category, but that’s what the comments box is for.

Last week’s poll predicted the European Team Championships will be won by the Russians, who had over twice as many votes as their nearest rivals. They are sitting on three wins out of three so far. The clichéd phrase is: “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”

The 1st round of the European Team Championship starts on Friday the 13th in Reykjavík, Iceland.

Russia will be top seeds in the Open section, as usual, but the Russians have struggled in some team events in recent years. They will be challenged by the likes of Ukraine (Ivanchuk, Eljanov…), Azerbaijan (with new arrival Naiditsch), France (MVL, Fressinet…), England, Armenia (Aronian, Sargissian…) and Hungary (non-playing captain Judit Polgar).

Who do you think will win the Open Section of the 2015 European Team Championship?

I should avoid interfering with the sanctity of an internet poll, but as a loyal Brit I like the medal hopes of an England team of Adams, Short, Jones, Howell and McShane. And good luck to Scotland and Denmark, with the Danish non-playing captain Jacob Aagaard. In fact, if you check out the team list you could make a few fine teams out of the non-playing captains.

Read more…