2/7/2021 – “The 8x8 board allied with the rules of chess is an amazing canvas. Much of the time the pictures it paints are fairly mundane, but occasionally it creates something extraordinary”, writes Jon Speelman to conclude this week’s article. In it, you will find helpmates, cooks and a surprising move out of a Catalan. | Photo: Anna Barnett website
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Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
Your key to fresh ideas, precise analyses and targeted training! Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
The Sniper is a universal opening framework which can be played against all main first white moves - 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4, 1.f4 and 1.Nf3. Black plays 1…g6, 2…Bg7 and 3…c5 against practically anything!
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Helpmates, cooks, beauty
[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]
A few weeks ago, Luke McShane sent me a helpmate he’d composed aided by an online helpmate tool — a nice graphical front end for the Popeye problem-solving engine. And using it you can check ideas with a speed and accuracy which was unheard of in the times when real men created helpmates through their sweat: hoping against hope that their beautiful ideas wouldn’t be polluted by unwelcome extra solutions — cooks.
In helpmates Black moves first and conspires with White to get himself checkmated. Luke’s appears below, and it also includes set play — a solution half a move shorter in which White moves first.
In over 4 hours in front of the camera, Karsten Müller presents to you sensations from the world of endgames - partly reaching far beyond standard techniques and rules of thumb - and rounds off with some cases of with own examples.
Once he gave me the address I couldn’t resist playing with the toy myself. The procedure, which is probably not all that different from what the real men used to do, is to set up an idea and then look for cooks — or rather, in this case, use the engine to do so for you. You then add pieces to try to eliminate them and more often than not create some other cooks instead. But given the 100% accuracy of the error-checking it should take only hours to get something sound — a task which would once have taken weeks or months.
Having got one of my ideas to work but in a pretty ugly setting (#3) I sent it to Luke, and he later managed to zap some of my material creating a rather beautiful setting (#4). However, when he entered it into the engine it came back with a second solution — a cook which is of Michelin-star quality, except that sadly it bears no relation at all to the thematic intended solution. Luke also pointed out that with a small adjustment you could lose that cook (#5).
I sent it to John Nunn [pictured], who as you may know is a former world champion problem solver, and he got the thematic solution in less than a minute! However, it took him more than 15 minutes to find the pretty cook. His aesthetic opinion — and I’m sure he’s right — is that rather than this being an elegant sufficiency, too many cooks spoil the broth. But I’m a little sad to lose the outlier, so I’ve included both versions.
[Photo: Franziska Iseli]
Once you’ve seen the theme then you might, by analogy, be able to solve this one reasonably quickly — John said it took him almost no time at all and Jonathan Mestel, also a former world champion problem solver, was the same.
Opening with the Chigorin shows your intention to play for a win right from the outset. After 2...Nc6 Black's pieces fly into the game putting pressure on White's position from a very early stage. This opening is ideal for the type of player who strives for an unconvential yet attacking game right from the start.
Chess problems are about making aesthetic and often surprising ideas work. Of course this sometimes happens over the board too, and Tim Krabbe famously created a list of the 100 most amazing chess moves — for his top ten follow this link.
I’ve taken his #1 to use here and also added something I found recently. I was looking at the Catalan Accepted with a very strong pupil, and at some stage we got onto a4 in the old main line. Using a database, I filtered for top players and came up with a blitz game between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Hikaru Nakamura.
It certainly isn’t the most important game ever played in the Catalan, but I was flicking through in a fairly desultory sort of way when I glanced at a side line and my engine suddenly went ping — and not just ping but PING! The move it found in a split second is amazing, and I doubt whether, had I reached the position, I would have found it at a normal time limit, let alone at blitz.
The 8x8 board allied with the rules of chess is an amazing canvas. Much of the time the pictures it paints are fairly mundane, but occasionally it creates something extraordinary.
Garry Kasparov's rise to the top was meteoric and at his very first attempt he managed to become World Champion, the youngest of all time. In over six hours of video, he gives a first hand account of crucial events from recent chess history, you can improve your chess understanding and enjoy explanations and comments from a unique and outstanding personality on and off the chess board.
Jonathan SpeelmanJonathan Speelman, born in 1956, studied mathematics but became a professional chess player in 1977. He was a member of the English Olympic team from 1980–2006 and three times British Champion. He played twice in Candidates Tournaments, reaching the semi-final in 1989. He twice seconded a World Championship challenger: Nigel Short and then Viswanathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and New York 1995.
1/17/2021 – Noting that Australia is the continent with the greatest variety of venomous animals, star columnist Jon Speelman explores creepy-crawlies in chess — i.e. tiny moves that often have a huge effect, far beyond their visual impression. He then looks at games in which Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov make use of such creeping manoeuvres.
1/3/2021 – Star columnist Jon Speelman recaps what he describes as an “unpr******ted” year, noting that the u-word is “a screen behind the comforting foliage of which gormless politicians have hidden”. Speelman then analyses remarkable wins by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Daniil Dubov, Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen. | Photos: Niki Riga / Lennart Ootes
The Elephant Gambit (1.e4.e5 2.Nf3 d5!?) has never really been given the attention it deserves. It is a very useful surprise weapon. Let us list the advantages of playing this particular opening: 1) Shock value 2) It is very aggressive. Black can take over the initiative early. 3) Many tricky lines 4) Unorthodox. Black is basically taking the game to the opponent as early as move two. Not many openings do that! It's a perfect opening for young players and club players to adopt. Let Andrew Martin select a repertoire for you on this 60 mins, which, if used with discretion, will rack up the points. I am sure that you will enjoy this unusual tour of the Elephant Gambit.
Naturally, a universal approach using ...Nf6, ...g7-g6 and ...d7-d5 as the base would be very useful for players of all classes, saving time and energy and promising a fluid, dynamic position.
Anniversary issue with several extras! "My favourite young Carlsen game": 22 authors annotate. Pearls from Wijk: Jorden van Foreest and Anish Giri comment on their best games. Plus 11 opening articles, 3 opening videos, "Carlen's strategy" and much more!
Fat Fritz 2.0 is the successor to the revolutionary Fat Fritz, which was based on the famous AlphaZero algorithms. This new version takes chess analysis to the next level and is a must for players of all skill levels.
Videos by Jan Werle ("Latest trends in King's Indian Saemisch Variation") and Mihail Marin ("Ruy Lopez with 6.d3"). "Lucky bag" with analyses by Adhiban, Ganguly, Mikhalchishin, Bartel et al. Over 44,000 new games for your database.
In this video series Pert gives a strong and practical Black repertoire against the Anti-Sicilians such as the Bb5 Sicilian, the Grand Prix Attack, the Alapin and many more, from my years of experience playing the Sicilian.
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