Record broken?

Leonard Barden [Photo by Linda Nylind for the
Guardian]
Leonard Barden's weekly
Guardian chess column began in September 1955 and has continued
since with no breaks for sixty years and seven months. It has broken
the previous record for any columnist, held by English local columnist Tom
Widdows, who wrote weekly in the Worcester News from October 1945 until
April 2006, 60 years and 6 months. Actually Widdows' column consisted just
of a bare record of results from his local league and county matches, and
he stopped for two months every summer between chess seasons. Garry Koshnitsky,
the 1933 and 1939 Australian champion, wrote weekly in the Sydney Sun from
1935 until 1994, 59 years. However, Koshnitsky was called up for war service
in 1939 and his column did not resume until 1949, a break of ten years.
Herman Helms was
the 'Dean of American chess'. Helms wrote weekly in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
from October 1893 until the newspaper ceased publication on 16 March 1955,
which is 61 years 5 months. There was a break from November 1907, when Helms
lost his column, until March 1911, when he was reinstated. Allowing for
this break, Helms wrote for 58 years 1 month.
And we must mention former Irish champion Jim
Walsh, who began writing weekly in the Irish Times in April 1955. His
column became daily in September 1972 and he has continued without a break
ever since. Walsh is two years younger than Barden and started his column
four months earlier. So he should have or be heading for the record. However
we were not able to find the column, and a
note in the Irish Times dated August 2012 speaks of celebrating the
column's 40th anniversary.
We must mention, however, that Leonard Barden's other (daily!) column,
in the Evening Standard,
began in June 1956 and has continued every day since. It was in print until
30 July 2010 (54 years 1 month), and has since continued
online – click on this link for some additional entertaining chess
puzzles. So this column has been running for almost sixty years, easily
overtaking the one written by George Koltanowski for the San Francisco Daily
Chronicle, which lasted 51 years 9 months, until his death. Leonard's Evening
Standard column is quite possibly the longest ever running daily column
by a single journalist in any field of journalism.
The Guardian chess column
By Leonard Barden
Friday 15 April 2016
Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin unlikely to meet before world title
The battle lines are drawn. Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin, seven months
before their world title match, have announced their tournament schedules,
with only a minuscule chance of a direct clash. Carlsen, the champion, plays
on home turf next week in Stavanger, which starts on Monday (live and free
online from 3pm) with a blitz tournament to decide the pairings for the
main event and who gets an extra White. The 25-year-old has something to
prove since the weight of expectation for the national sporting hero triggered
his below-par results in the previous three Stavanger events as well as
in the 2014 world team Olympiad in Tromso.
Carlsen will then play the €150,000 Grand Tour blitz tournaments at
Paris in May and Brussels in June, the Bilbao Grand Slam in July and the
2016 Olympiad at Baku in September, leaving two months for his final preparations.
Karjakin will compete at Shamkir in Azerbaijan in May, in the Russia v China
match in June and finally at Baku. Theoretically the pair could meet at
the 150-nation Olympiad but the chance is small. Russia will be going for
gold while Norway, even with the world champion to lead them, will do well
to finish in the top 15.
After his Candidates victory Karjakin gave an
extensive interview to chess journalists from Germany, India and Spain.
Karjakin comes across as a pleasant, open and determined character who respects
and is on good terms with Carlsen. A world championship between a Russian
and a Westerner will inevitably arouse memories of Bobby Fischer and Boris
Spassky in 1972, so Karjakin’s remark that “I support my country
and my president and what he does is right”, accompanied in the article
by a photo of the challenger wearing a Vladimir Putin T-shirt will, for
some people, politicise the match.
Carlsen’s opponents at Stavanger include ex-world champion Kramnik
plus the 2016 candidates Veselin Topalov, Anish Giri and Levon Aronian,
so it will be a stiff test and well worth viewing.
Michael McDowell, The Problemist 2014

White mates in three moves – looks trivial, but
can prove visually tricky
Friday 8 April 2016
Ferenc Berkes wins with a subtle opening at Colin Crouch memorial
The strong Colin Crouch memorial tournament which finishes at Harrow this
weekend, viewable live and free on the internet, is a fitting tribute to
one of England’s most active masters, who died a year ago. Crouch
was an imaginative and original player who was close to grandmaster strength
at his peak when he competed in the 1992-93 Hastings Premier. Later he suffered
a severe stroke but continued to write excellent instructional books and
to coach talented juniors.
Prize money of over £3,000 attracted a strong field of 44 players,
among them five GMs from the US and Eastern Europe, plus several of England’s
best young talents including the 14-year-old British woman champion, Akshaya
Kalaiyalahan. At halfway the favourites from Uzbekistan and Hungary led
the field while the English amateur experts Marcus Osborne, aged 40, and
James Jackson, aged 25, were in the leading group and both in contention
for an international master result.
Ferenc Berkes, Hungary’s No5 GM, was top seed and his first-round
win was a pragmatic lesson on what strategy to follow when you have the
white pieces in the Queen’s Gambit Declined 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6. Nowadays,
the QGD normally means the Exchange variation where White makes an early
cxd5 capture so as to restrict Black’s choice and ensure a lasting
initiative.
The big question is whether White should develop his king’s knight
at f3 or e2. Majority opinion favours the former, when White’s usual
plan is a minority attack based on b4-b5xc6 so as to leave Black with a
weak c6 pawn which White can then besiege. The Ne2 alternative is more ambitious,
aiming at a later f3 and e4 leading to a king’s side attack. It is
basically the same pattern that arises from the Botvinnik system against
the Nimzo-Indian. Which to choose?
G. Ernst, 1919

White mates in four moves against any defence –
looks easy, but is deceptively tricky
Friday 1 April 2016
Sergey Karjakin to face Magnus Carlsen after victory at Moscow Candidates
Sergey Karjakin will challenge for Magnus Carlsen’s world crown after
the 26-year-old Russian beat Fabiano Caruana of the United States in the
decisive final round of the Candidates in Moscow. Karjakin was a deserved
winner who proved tough and resilient under pressure.
The world championship pairing fulfils forecasts made a decade ago when
Karjakin became the youngest ever grandmaster at 12 and Carlsen soon followed
him. They are symbols of the triumph of the 1990 vintage, the best birth
year for top players in chess history. France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave,
two Russian 2700+ GMs, and England’s youngest GM, David Howell, are
among their contemporaries.
Carlsen leads Karjakin 3-1 with 15 draws in their previous classical games
and that suggests the title match will be close, with some dour marathons
and a variety of openings. The Norwegian is favourite, as he proclaimed
this week, yet the margin for error will be small in a 12-game series. If
Carlsen makes a single major miscalculation, as he did against Vishy Anand
in 2014, he will be in trouble. Karjakin is well capable of defending a
lead and also has a serious chance if they end with 6-6 and a speed tie-break.
Before that there are still questions to be answered as to whether the
world championship will even reach its planned venue in New York’s
Trump Tower. Some observers, including England’s former challenger
Nigel Short, believe it will not happen.
From a game in Poland, 1981

Queen and pawn v queen is tricky, so how did White (to
move) win here?
Friday 25 March 2016
The world title Candidates in Moscow has its final two rounds (of 14) on
Sunday and Monday and suddenly from nowhere an American has a strong chance.
Fabiano Caruana, born in Miami and raised in Brooklyn, shared the lead with
Russia’s Sergey Karjakin at the end of Friday’s 12th round though
with the inferior tie-break.
To add to the spice of the United States v Russia climax, which is a mini-rerun
of the most famous chess match of all time, Bobby Fischer v Boris Spassky
at Reykjajik in 1972, Karjakin and Caruana are paired in Monday’s
final round. It will likely be a must-win occasion for the American, who
has the disadvantage of the black pieces.
There are no prizes for guessing who Agon, the controversial commercial
partner of the global body, Fide, wants to succeed. Caruana, 23, may have
a geekish image but he would be the home-town hero in New York with a realistic
chance to upset the defending champion, Magnus Carlsen. It would be a great
occasion for chess, with real chances of attracting mainstream media.
Evgeny Bareev v Judit Polgar, Hastings 1993-94

How did Polgar, the all-time No1 woman,
(Black, to move) win this tricky pawn endgame?
Click for the solutions to the above puzzles
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About the author

Leonard William Barden (photo above by Linda Nylind for
the Guardian) was born on August 20, 1929, in Croydon, London, the son of
a dustman, and was educated at Whitgift School, South Croydon, and Balliol
College, Oxford, where he read Modern History.
Barden learned to play chess at age 13 while in a school shelter during
a German air raid. Within a few years he became one of the country's leading
juniors. In 1946 he won the British Junior Correspondence Chess Championship,
and tied for first place in the London Boys' Championship. The following
year he tied for first with Jonathan Penrose in the British Boys' Championship,
but lost the playoff. Barden finished fourth at Hastings in 1951–52
and fourth in 1957–58.
In 1953 Barden won the individual British Lightning Championship (ten seconds
a move), and in the following year tied for first in the British Championship.
He did this again in 1958. He represented England in the Chess Olympiads
of 1952 (playing fourth board, scoring 2 wins, 5 draws, and 4 losses), 1954
(playing first reserve, scoring 1 win, 2 draws, and 4 losses), 1960 (first
reserve; 4 wins, 4 draws, 2 losses) and 1962 (first reserve; 7 wins, 2 draws,
3 losses).
In 1964 Barden gave up competitive chess to devote his time to chess journalism
and writing books about the game. He has made invaluable contributions to
English chess as a populariser, writer, organiser, fundraiser, and broadcaster.
He was a regular contributor to the BBC's Network Three weekly radio chess
programme from 1958 to 1963.

The Guardian Chess Column that Leonard has been writing without interruption
for well over sixty years appears every Friday, with topical news, games
and a chess puzzle. You can find an index of all columns since January 2008
here
– with the latest column on the top. The column is also regularly
itemized in Google News:
