Resigning a won game

by Jonathan Speelman
2/3/2019 – True Agony! Columnist GM JON SPEELMAN briefly rifs on AlphaZero and Giri-Shankland before turning his attention to this week's submission from Zimbabwean Class A player, Tapiwa Allister Gora. Feel free to send in your own games! Jon can always use more material from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account! | Photo: Tapiwa Gora (right) vs Simon Bokamoso at a recent tournament

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Speelman's Agony #92

Many thanks first to everybody who's sent games into the drop box in recent weeks. Two requests though: Please include an email address so that I can contact you. And please use either PGN or a compressed ChessBase database CBV. (In ChessBase, click Menu→Database→Backup database, or hit Ctrl+Z.) 

Last Tuesday (January 29th), I went to a lecture in London regarding Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan's new book on AlphaZero: “Game Changer”.

The chess manifestation of Google DeepMind's platform (which first produced AlphaGo and subsequently also a Shogi program AlphaZero-Elmo), AlphaZero, was completely self-taught starting with just the rules of chess over a period of hours: though given the prodigious computing power employed this translates to years on normal hardware. The result which is already surely the strongest chess playing entity on the planet has been able to defeat Stockfish over a large number of games though admittedly in their first match Stockfish was grossly hampered being deprived of its opening book and given a meagre one Gigabyte of hash tables when 64 would apparently have been optimal.

The really interesting thing from a chess perspective is that AlphaZero has its own unique style and evidently — it's still a black box to us though they're writing software to interrogate it — its own evaluation system. And this has led to a number of really splendid (super)human-like games in which this weird monster has elicited almost no concern with traditional material values, 210 games incidentally are downloadable from DeepMind (or replayable from ChessBase's "Inside the (deep) mind of AlphaZero").

The talk started with a presentation by computer scientist Thore Graepel a lead researcher on the project, who was followed by Regan and then Sadler. A short moderated chat followed and then questions were taken from the audience. [See our recent interview with the authors -Ed.]

While there were some chess players and surely also some AI people, the majority, I imagine, were interested members of the public. And one question was whether, given that engines play better than people, interest in games between humans would die out?

The answer currently, and I hope in the future is, of course, “No!”. Chess between humans is a visceral ritual battle projected onto an artificial (but potent) arena and while we hope for brilliance, we also expect mistakes (which incidentally is why engines can beat us since most of them — though perhaps not AlphaZero — are still above all giant error checkers seizing on our inevitable tactical inaccuracies mercilessly).

The worst mistakes in chess change the result at a stroke by 90 or even 180 degrees. One of the latter occurs in this week's games and first a mere 90% in the notorious game from Wijk aan Zee in which Sam Shankland resigned against Anish Giri in a drawn position.

 
Giri vs Shankland, Wijk aan Zee 2019
Final position

Tapiwa GoraAfter 45.b6 Shankland surrendered. Of course, simply ♚d5-d6-d7-c8 and sitting would have made a draw since White can't prevent the king from oscillating between c8 and either d7 or d8 unless he gives stalemate or chases the king into the corner which doesn't help either.  

The amazing thing is not that Shankland had a moment of madness but that he had the mental strength to recover immediately beating both Ian Nepomniachtchi and Vladimir Kramnik in the final two rounds. Bravo!

This week's games are by Tapiwa Allister Gora (pictured), a 20-something Zimbabwean. He wrote a couple of notes but everything else is mine. We start with the Agony in which the poor guy resigned in a winning position!

 
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1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.c4 c6 4.Nc3 cxd5 5.d3 Of course this isn't very good - they usually play 5.d4 Nc6 5...dxc4 6.dxc4 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be3 6...Qxd1+ must be at least equal for Black but why not d4. 5...d4 6.Nb5 a6 and Qa4 which what you want to play simply doesn't work: 7.Qa4 Nc6 8.Bf4 e5 9.Bxe5 axb5 10.Qxa8 Bb4+ 11.Ke2 Bg4+ 6.Bg5 d4 7.Bxf6 exf6 7...gxf6 is also good. 8.Ne4 Bb4+ 9.Nd2 0-0 10.a3 Re8+ 11.Be2 Ba5 12.b4 Bc7 13.Ngf3 Qe7 14.Ra2 Bg4 15.h3 Bh5
Unable to castle, White is seriously worse. 16.Kf1 Rad8 17.Nb3 a6 18.Nc5 Bb6 19.Ne4 Bg6 20.Nfd2 f5 21.Ng3 Bc7 22.Nh5 f4 22...Qxe2+ 23.Qxe2 Rxe2 24.Nf6+ gxf6 25.Kxe2 f4 must be winning but the trebled pawns are ugly so this is more sensible. 23.Ra1 Bf5 23...f3! 24.Bxf3 Bxd3+ 25.Kg1 Bg6 was very strong. 24.g4 Bc8 24...fxg3 25.Nxg3 Bxg3 26.fxg3 Ne5 and White shouldn't be able to defend himself. 25.Ne4 f5 26.gxf5 Bxf5 27.Bf3 Rf8 28.Qd2 Ne5 29.Qe2 Nxf3
30.Nef6+ OK one of the most embarrassing moments in my chess career; I cannot believe I was winning and decided to resign simply because my opponent reacted in a way that made it seem like I was lost. JS Shock can do things like that to a player. I somehow failed to notice Kf7 myself but did realise that Rxf6 would be pretty good and indeed it wins too: 30.Nef6+ Rxf6 30...Kf7! 31.Qxf3 gxf6 simply leaves Black a piece up. 31.Qxe7 Bxd3+ 32.Kg2 Rf7 32...Nh4+= forces a draw by perpetual even if Black is unahppy at playing with two terrific pieces for the queen. 33.Qc5 33.Qxd8+ Bxd8 34.Kxf3 Bxc4 33.Qxf7+ Kxf7 34.Kxf3 g5 and Black has much more than he needs for the exchange and should win. 33...Be4 34.Kf1 b6 and the queen is trapped!
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Darlington,M-Tapiwa,G19791–02018B01EASTER OPEN 20185.17
Tapiwa,G-Isheanesu,C-1–02009A04National Scholars Chamionships 2009

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The Scandinavian is a rarely employed opening on the hightest level und guides your opponent on much less familiar terrain than for example the Sicilian, French or any 1.e4 e5 system. After 1.e4 d5 Black fights for the initiative from move one.


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Jonathan 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.

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