Chess and Shogi – GM Alexander Chernin in Japan

GM Alexander Chernin in Japan

Report by Jacques-Marie Pineau from Kawagoe, Japan

A few years ago, sensing my own limits, I introduced my chess student from Japan, Toshiyuki Moriuchi, to grandmaster and acclaimed chess coach Alexander Chernin. They were soon on friendly terms: GM Chernin taught the importance of pawn structure and positional play to Moriuchi in Budapest six years ago, and gave some lessons to Yoshiharu Habu last October shortly before another event held at my friend (and French Chess Federation President) Henri Carvallo's Villandry Castle, during which French Champion Maxime Vachier-Lagrave faced both Habu and Moriuchi simultaneously. Moriuchi lost and Habu drew, but both put a lot of fight, and until the very end all results might been possible. GM Chernin was already there to help me to comment the games. We reported recently about this event.

Alexander Mikhailovich Chernin, Ukrainian GM and a former Soviet Champion

Following these intriguing exchanges, I began to entertain the thought of inviting GM Chernin to Japan, and have him share his deep positional chess understanding with the small but dedicated local chess community. Especially when Chernin and his wife said to me their dream to come in Japan.

As you probably know, Japan has its own, very popular, version of chess called shogi. Shogi has officially a 400-year history and is considered a traditional art much like tea ceremony or Ikebana. But Shogi is also very contemporary and popular played by millions of Japanese including a few hundred professional players, the best among whom are regarded as celebrities. Yoshiharu Habu and Toshiyuki Moriuchi are respectively the 19e and 18e Lifetime Meijins.

Yoshiharu Habu, 19e Lifetime Meijin in Shogi

This title is disputed each year and award to the best professional – it is like winning a World Championship match in western chess. To become a Lifetime Meijin you have to win it five times. Emanuel Lasker, Mikhail Botvinnik, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov would be Lifetime Meijins of chess. Incidentally Habu and Moriuchi are also among the very best chess players in Japan, performing steadily at IM level, despite of having had little time and few opportunities to hone their skills.

Shogi Master and chess trainer: Toshiyuki Moriuchi and Jacques-Marie Pineau

As hinted above, a feature of most Japanese chess players' style is that their tactical ability is more developed than their positional sense. One anecdote illustrates this point beautifully. About fifteen years ago I showed shogi champions (then chess beginners) Habu and Moriuchi the game Kasparov-Kramnik, Dos Hermanas, in 1996 – a tense game which the young Kramnik won. As I was going through the moves they interrupted me before the end with a shocking question: "Wait, can't Black mate here?" In just a few seconds, they had seen the mate in four which the very talented Kramnik missed, opting instead for a more practical ending.

Kasparov,Garry (2775) - Kramnik,Vladimir (2775) [D48]
Dos Hermanas Dos Hermanas (6), 27.05.1996
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4 b5 8.Bd3 Bb7 9.0-0 a6 10.e4 c5 11.d5 c4 12.Bc2 Qc7 13.Nd4 Nc5 14.b4 cxb3 15.axb3 b4 16.Na4 Ncxe4 17.Bxe4 Nxe4 18.dxe6 Bd6 19.exf7+ Qxf7 20.f3 Qh5 21.g3 0-0 22.fxe4 Qh3 23.Nf3 Bxg3 24.Nc5 Rxf3 25.Rxf3 Qxh2+ 26.Kf1 Bc6 27.Bg5 Bb5+ 28.Nd3 Re8 29.Ra2

Here Kramnik played 29...Qh1+ 30.Ke2 Rxe4+ 31.Kd2 Qg2+ 32.Kc1 Qxa2 33.Rxg3 Qa1+ 34.Kc2 Qc3+ 35.Kb1 Rd4 and winning. But he missed a mate in four in the diagram position, which the Shogi masters immediately spotted – and which our chess specialists will hopefully also find.

Garry Kasparov trying his hand at Shogi, against Eiichiro Ishiyama, a 3-dan player

Although I knew that shogi is tactically more complex than chess, this caught me completely by surprise. Conversely, the fact that shogi players have some difficulty to grasp positional play can in part be explained by the fact that there is no pawn structure in shogi. The first man who developed a theory from a chess practice the 18th century, chess champion Philidor from France, would likely turn into his grave should he witness a game of shogi!

When considering how Japanese people can excel at highly complex games, it is quite astonishing to note that in spite of being the third largest economy on the planet, Japan with a population of 127 million people ranks at a paltry 92th place on FIDE's chess world ranking list, just behind Monaco. Quite a disheartening thought – also on a personal level, since for the last 25 years or so I have tried to promote chess to Japan, founding two clubs, one in the Tokyo suburb of Asaka, the other at the French Embassy the at French Institute of Tokyo. I have also been teaching chess in schools, writing several books in Japanese, and training two of the most famous shogi players and friends Habu and Moriuchi of the Japan Shogi Renmei (Federation of Professional Players) for the past ten years. Against this rather difficult backdrop, I am deeply grateful to my friend grandmaster Chernin and his wife, for accepting to devote part of their recent vacation to Japan to promote chess in this country. Here follows a brief account of their stay.

Chess lecture and simultaneous exhibition in Asaka Chess Club

The purpose of this event was to be accessible to a large audience of chess players of different generations and playing strength. This opportunity was so well-received among Japanese chess community that some players came especially from Niigata, situated 350 km from Tokyo, just to meet the GM.

The lecture was on how to weaken a kingside castle and how to make use of it, showing the logical and historical bacground of the famous Fischer vs Myagmarsuren during Itz of Sousse, in 1967.

After the lecture Chernin played a 25 board simul, conceding only three draws

Chess lecture in Kaisei High School

I think it is safe to say that this was the first time a chess grandmaster ever gave a lecture in a school in Japan. Kaisei High School is one the most famous schools in Tokyo. Considering chess as very formative for young people, I suggested inviting pupils from other schools as well. For some of them it was a very first occasion to even see chess pieces, let alone a GM such as Chernin. After the lecture, the famous poet and chess fan Matsuura decided to draw a team among these students from the different schools. Here is the game they played with Chernin, who of course played the Pirc Defence. I encouraged the students to buy "Pirc Alert", the invaluable book which he wrote with GM Alburt. This book have the educational virtue to teach ideas to different level.

Chernin with the students of the most famous Tokyo high schools: Kaisei, Azabu, Gyosei, Osyukan

– Part two to follow soon –

Previous ChessBase articles on Shogi

Chess-playing Japanese Shogi champions 15.04.2012 – The Japanese chess variant Shogi is the most popular board game in the country. In recent years some of its greatest contemporary champions have started taking up chess, and two intersting experiments were recently conducted: a top GM played a chess simul against two Shogi masters, and the top Shogi champion a three-board Shogi handicap against chess masters. Illustrated report with games.

Garry Kasparov – taking up Shogi? 01.04.2008 – It was an interesting experiment: the former World Champion has, after his retirement from chess, tried his hand at the Japanese version of the game. Shogi is played on a 9 by 9 uncheckered board with flat wedge-shaped pieces with Kanji characters written on them. In his very first game Kasparov came ominously close to humiliating a three-dan player. Report and game.

800 Wins at 32 Years Old!? 25.02.2003 – It's chess all right, but Japanese chess, or shogi. The popular sport has its own icon, Yoshiharu Habu, whose games are regularly on TV in Japan. On Sunday Habu became, at 32, the youngest player ever to reach 800 career victories, breaking the record by six months. Kasparov has yet to reach that number in competitive play. More..

Joel Lautier's Shogi simul 06.11.2002 – He is by his own admittance a "patzer-level" Shogi player. But chess grandmaster Joel Lautier, whose mother is Japanese, recently took on three of the best Shogi players in Japan in a clock simul. In chess naturally. It was not, however, a trivial task. Japan's top Shogi player, Yoshiharu Habu, is of IM strength. More

When a Shogi champion turns to chess 17.05.2002 – Michael Jordan tried it with baseball – it, like, didn't work out. But what about a professional Shogi champion switching to chess? Yoshiharu Habu, one of the most gifted players in the history of the ancient Japanese game, has taken a casual interest in chess – and already reached IM strength. He is currently playing in a tournament in Paris, where Joel Lautier interviewed him.

Copyright Pineau/ChessBase