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Chess Magazine was established in 1935 by B.H. Wood who ran it for over fifty years. It is published each month by the London Chess Centre and is edited by John Saunders. The Executive Editor is Malcolm Pein, who organised the London Chess Classic. CHESS is one of most popular English language chess publications and one of the very few in A4 colour format.
One disadvantage of knock-outs is that they are not equitable where only one game is to be played. In top-level chess (and probably in low-level chess too) White has a substantial in-built advantage. An attempt was made to address this unfairness at Hastings a few years ago by providing Black with extra thinking time as compensation for moving second but the system was subsequently dropped in favour of a traditional Swiss.
This year in the Basque city of Donostia (formerly known as San Sebastián), another experimental knock-out system was tried at a prestigious tournament (held to celebrate the centenary of the 1912 San Sebastián tournament which Steve Giddins writes about elsewhere in this issue). The simple idea, attributed to the late David Bronstein, was for the players to play not one but two games at a sitting, with opposite colours.
The organisers had also been influenced by the statistical researches of a Spanish-born professor of the London School of Economics, Ignacio Palacios Huerta, who investigated sports results. His inquiry had revealed was that the team which goes first in football penalty shoot-outs had a 60-40 advantage over the team that shoots second. But he had also looked at top-level chess and came to the conclusion that there was a similar advantage for players having white in the first game of chess matches. He mentioned this in a speech during the Bilbao Grand Slam Final in 2010 and it set the Donostia organisers thinking. Before the tournament they made their announcement: “this combination of Bronstein’s old idea and Palacio’s modern analysis we have christened as the ‘Basque System’”.
“This Basque chess has got me completely confused!” He might
look baffled in this
photo but this is Ukrainian GM Andrei Volokitin who ran out the eventual winner
of
the first ever ‘Basque chess’ contest! [Photo by David Llada and
Anastasya Karlovich
That still left the question open as to whether top grandmasters would consent to ‘wear a Basque’. But the organisers assembled an impressive line-up, with ten 2700+ rated players headed by Azerbaijani GMs Gashimov and Mamedyarov. The event was held from 28 December to 5 January. The time control was two hours for all the moves with a 30-second increment – remember, that is for two games played simultaneously. If the two games finished 1-1, there followed two simultaneous games at 15 mins plus 10 seconds, followed if necessary by two more games at 5 mins plus 3 seconds, and finally a single Armageddon game. Of course, the new system is not FIDE-rateable at the moment, but perhaps the organisers will lobby for it in the future.
Video impression of how the two-board Basque knock-out system works
The first (preliminary) round consisted of 15 pairings between lower rated players in order to feed 15 players into the 64 needed for the second round when the leading players joined battle. The preliminary round included one English FM, Laurence Webb, who was eliminated by Sarkhan Gashimov, the elder brother (and manager) of GM Vugar Gashimov. Second round victims didn’t just go home but joined the subsidiary Group B, from whence a further defeat led them to an open section, Group C.
Initial impressions after the second round were generally positive. Antoaneta Stefanova: “Actually it was quite fun to play two games against the same opponent. I can say that I enjoyed it. It went well from the beginning.” Sergey Fedorchuk: “During the game I confused moves, score sheets... I wrote down wrong moves, correcting them and of course it distracted me. At least I pushed clocks correctly. I was playing very fast at the beginning, thinking that my time would finish very soon but in fact two hours are enough even for two games.” Shakhriyar Mamedyarov: “The idea was created by David Bronstein and if I’m not mistaken he played crazy eight-board matches against Mikhail Tal simultaneously. I don’t know if this format will be popular in the future but in my opinion this event is already a big success!” Alexander Moiseenko was perhaps more candid: “I cannot say that I came here because of the new system. The main reason to participate was an impressive prize fund, of course!”
There were not too many surprise results until the round of sixteen, but thereafter the new format proved to be tough on the big names. At that stage second seed Mamedyarov bit the dust, losing 0-2 to Peruvian GM Julio Granda Zuñiga. In the same round Arkadij Naiditsch went out 1-3 to Andrei Volokitin, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave lost 1-3 to Viktor Laznicka. Volokitin and Laznicka knocked out two more higher rated opponents in the quarter-finals: Ruslan Ponomariov and top seed Vugar Gashimov respectively.
The semi-final pairings were Laznicka (9th seed) versus Alexander Moiseenko (4th seed), and Leinier Domínguez (7th) versus Andrei Volokitin (11th seed). From this point onwards, the lower rated player beat the higher one to the end of the tournament, from which you can work out that that Volokitin beat Laznicka in the final. The score was 2-0.
Looking at the games (not all seem to be available or complete), it is hard to know whether the players took the event entirely seriously, given that it had no bearing on their ratings. The following game perhaps hints at an excess of Christmas spirit but Black certainly plays some excellent moves. The photo shows him scratching his head in perplexity but he evidently got the hang of this new-format chess better than the other players.
Quite an interesting experiment but will it catch on? Prospective organisers will have to remember that they need one set, board and clock for each player, not each pair of players – and twice the usual table space per person. One tricky question I’ve not seen addressed in the official press releases is that of suitable chairs. Most players like to sit right in front of the board they are playing at and it might mean a lot of chair moving (potentially disruptive in terms of noise), or leaning across awkwardly from a middle position. Is Basque chess ergonomically sound, therefore? I whisper this quietly in case those annoying Health and Safety people are listening, and decide it’s bad for chessplayers’ lumbar regions or the like. I daresay there are numerous other problems which experienced arbiters and organisers might identify.
The following scenario crossed my mind: what happens when “A Joker” decides to mirror the opponent’s moves? The games start: Joker patiently waits for the opponent to play his first white move and then simply repeats it on the other board. And so on and so forth, to the end of the games and the almost inevitable 1-1 scoreline. Does the arbiter step in at an early stage and threaten A Joker with a penalty under law 12.1 (“The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute”)? I honestly don’t know. Answers on a postcard, please...
View or download the PDF of this article in CHESS Magazine
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CHESS Magazine: A crushing sacrifice at Simpson's 08.02.2012 – It was the closing dinner of the London Chess Classic 2011, where it is tradition for the tournament GMs to play a sequential simul against the individual tables. At one there was the Shadow Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves, together with other notables. With some minimal assistance Rachel found a nice bishop sac to win the game. No wonder: she was a UK U14 girls champion. |
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A funny thing happened on the way to the tournament
hall… 27.11.2011 – Vassily Ivanchuk’s recent mugging in Sao Paulo shocked the chess world but it’s far from being the only mishap to befall a chessplayer on the way to or from work. It reminded Steve Giddins of some other off-board misfortunes in the past, from fire on the board (literally) to dog attacks and shootings. It's all in the latest issue of CHESS Magazine's Top Ten Greatest Chess Tournament Mishaps. |
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CHESS Magazine: Starry, Starry Knights 28.10.2011 – This is the story of GM Stuart Conquest’s adventurous summer, losing his belongings in Switzerland but finding the grave of a famous chessplayer in London. He did some digging (literally!) and found out a lot more about the player, and a world famous artist who was in London at the same time and may have crossed his path. Read all about it in the latest issue of CHESS Magazine. |
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CHESS Magazine: Judit Polgar on life as a Super-GM mom 12.08.2011 – When Lars Grahn asked Judit Polgar eleven years ago, as she was about to get married to her boyfriend Gustav, if she thought it was possible to combine family life with a chess career at top level, and she told him she would let me know when she had some experience of it. Eleven years and two children later Judit replied provided the answer in an in-depth interview in CHESS Magazine. |
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Bobby Fischer Against the World, premiering in July 21.06.2011 – More than three years have now passed since Bobby Fischer died, but it is quite clear that the final word has yet to be written on the former world chess champion’s life. Interest in him seems to be as strong as ever and there is no shortage of people keen to retell his story. July 5th is the premiere of a remarkable new movie which was discussed in the latest issue of CHESS Magazine. |
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Brady – Bobby Fischer's Game of the Century 29.05.2011 – We recently published a review by Sean Marsh on Frank Brady's new biography of Bobby Fischer. In the meantime we have received the handsome volume from the author and are actually reading it – with immense pleasure. To give you an impression of the quality of this book we bring you a short excerpt of a story you know. Read how wonderfully Dr Brady weaves the well-known tale. |
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Alekhine, Pomar, Reshevsky – Chess After the War 08.03.2011 – It is remarkable how quickly international competition was re-established after the Second World War. Alexander Alekhine was still very much alive, though understandably none too popular as a suspected Nazi collaborator. There was a first "Match of the Century" and the code-crackers chess masters were honoured. Yes, and can you guess when the electronic chessboard was invented? |
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Chess in the War – Part II 24.02.2011 – Here’s a question which no chess magazine editor would ever want to face – what do you put in your magazine in the event of a world war? The November 2010 issue of CHESS looked back at how BH Wood coped with the onset of World War Two, and how difficult running a magazine became as the war escalated. Today John Saunders takes another look into chess in the war years. |
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Chess in the War 17.02.2011 – Though chess is a war game, few things are more inimical to competitive chess than the advent of real war. Still worse is the threat posed to chess publications, as the populace lacks the time and money to spend on leisure activities, while vital resources have to diverted elsewhere. CHESS magazine has published a review of its survival in WWII. Here is part one of the harrowing story. |
