Computer Precision in a Historic Endgame – Karpov–Kasparov, 1984, game 9

Karpov – Kasparov 1984 match – game 9
 Black to move
In his recent book, Kasparov comments that 66… Bh1 has not found any refutation yet. It is now possible to say that there never will be any refutation because this 8 piece endgame can be completely pre-computed with FinalGen. It is a draw indeed, and Bh1 is the only move! In the game, Kasparov played Bb7 and lost…

Garry Kasparov Turns 50

Time flies, only “a few years ago” I was watching on Soviet TV an interview of a 27 year old Garry Kasparov while he was playing his last match against Karpov in 1990, and now he suddenly turns 50!

As a little tribute, here is a recent video I made of one of his last successful performances:

Kasparov Defeats Grandmaster in a simul

Kasparov - Spangenberg, 1997. A good example of White's play in Queen's Gambit Accepted with an isolated pawn. This is one of the games that made 7.Bb3 the most popular line against QGA.

Meditation and Chess

Recently I have been looking into the benefits of meditation, as well as trying to understand as general purpose.  One of the key aspects of successful meditation is supposedly being able to focus on the current moment rather than worrying about the past and the future. World chess champion Garry Kasparov has pointed out that being able to concentrate at the important moment is perhaps one of the most overlooked and important keys to becoming a successful chess player. I recall Canadian Chess Champion Kevin Spraggett has also indicated that he used meditation for his chess growth.

In our society there are so many distractions coming from the media, technology and pressures of everyday life that being able to focus on a chess position is a skill that I would guess can be improved with meditation.  I consider difficulty with focusing is one of the main obstacles for my successful studying of chess and better tournament results, so I am getting curious if meditation can help me with that ...

ChessBase turning 25

In his annotations to the game against Smyslov from the 1958 match, Botvinnik noted that a younger grandmaster ignored a transposition to the Botvinnik-Smyslov game, and as a result – made a faulty comment on some game played in the 1970s. Botvinnik’s conclusion was: “young grandmasters don’t study games of older generation, but it is also clear that chess openings should be stored using computer software”. Yes, this is so true, and Garry Kasparov was one of the first chess players who picked up on this idea, and therefore got involved in the development and promotion of what now became ChessBase software. Here is the story: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7229. Time flies and ChessBase software is now the most popular one among chess players, and it has affected the development of the game quite profoundly.

The photo from the article comes with the caption “It was Kasparov who first recognized the power of the system and used it intensely”. Good point, but it feels like it was Kasparov’s teacher who was first to recognize the need for such software!

Years have passed, and Kasparov now is also inside the software!

Kasparov vs. Karpov 1988-2009 – Tactics

Here are some more positions to add to my book review of Kasparov vs. Karpov 1988-2009.

Kasparov – Karpov, 1990, game 20
  White to move. The concentration of White pieces on the kingside leads to a mating attack.

Karpov - Kasparov, 1990, game 11
Black to move. Black is down the exchange, and the knight is attacked, so retreat is not an option. How can Black force a draw?

Kasparov – Karpov, Valencia 2009, rapid game 3
 White to move. The last brilliancy we see from Garry Kasparov?

Kasparov vs. Karpov 1988-2009 – Book review

This book wraps up the series about all the games between two perennial opponents – Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. The last volume is probably as exciting as the previous ones, if not the most exciting one. It has more tournament games than the previous ones, and includes the 1990 Match in New York/Lyons, about which I already have read/reviewed another book – Five Crowns.

Each book in the series has several brilliant games that have become classic, those to remember the struggle between the big K’s by.
1984 – the 27 game was Karpov’s endgame masterpiece, but the fact that the match lasted 48 games is most remarkable.
1985 match – the 16th game in Kasparov Gambit, and the 24th game – arguably the most “decisive” game in history.
1986 match had the 16th game with the crazy Spanish Attack as well as the “study like” 22 game.
The match in 1987 in Seville is probably most remembered by the last two games where Karpov and Kasparov exchanged wins and Kasparov got to keep the crown.

What games stand out in this 1988-2009 volume? In the 1990 match Karpov was playing aggressively as Black, but in this entire match, Black did not win a single game, so this strategy somewhat backfired. Among the better games are two wins by Kasparov in the Spanish Zaitsev Variation – games 2 and 20, and Karpov’s nice positional suffocation of Kasparov’s Grunfeld Defence in Game 17.
Among their tournament games, there were a couple of gems as well:

Kasparov – Karpov, Amsterdam 1988 was a mad clash where Kasparov sacrificed a couple of pieces and managed to outplay Karpov in time trouble
Black to move. In severe time trouble Karpov overlooked the most decisive way to end the game.

Karpov – Kasparov, Linares 1993 was the famous “Fischer chess” game, where all of Karpov’s pieces ended up on the first rank! Black to move. White had just attacked the rook with 22. Nc1. Does the rook have to retreat?

While in matches the record between K and K was very close, in tournaments Kasparov has scored 7-1 in decisive games. I can think of a couple of reasons for this:
- the tournament games were played later in their careers when Kasparov was in his prime, and Karpov rather on a decline, relative to his prime years
- Kasparov was more of a tournament player, so by the time K and K met, Karpov would often need to win to catch up with Kasparov, so he’d play more sharply than he would in matches.

What can a chess player learn from the series? I paid special attention to the following:

• The differences in style between Kasparov and Karpov are striking. In more than half of the games you can see Kasparov sacrificing something (usually a pawn) to activate his pieces, and Karpov – accepting the offered material. This is simply amazing! Both players achieved great results with their styles.
• Insights into opening preparation for each game show the development of opening theory – Kasparov shows what he prepared for each game, and how theory developed since then
• Time spent on each move. This adds to the reader’s understanding of what players saw, why they made blunders, what moments they considered critical in the development of each game.

The book also covers a few aspects of “chess politics”, the scandal during 1988 USSR championship, GMA, negotiations between FIDE and PCA during 1990’s and overall development of chess history during the covered years.

On a personal note, I read this volume in Russian, and to me this made for a much more pleasant experience, as while the translation in the English editions (which is all I have for the previous two volumes) is usually good, small imperfections still make me wish for seeing Kasparov’s original Russian text.

Crushing Attack – Splitting the Chess Board into Two Parts

In his books and videos – Garry Kasparov has often emphasized the skill of splitting the board into two halves. After that - an attack on the side where you have a numerical advantage is very likely to succeed, even if you are temporarily down in terms of overall material on the board. Once I was taught a good lesson in a blitz game, that illustrated this thesis.

aggro-Garryncha, ICC, 2003
  White to move. Black just played 18…Nb4. The White pawn on e5 prevents Black’s Queen knight and Rook from taking any part in the action on the kingside. White quickly took advantage of this situation.

19. Bxh7!! Kxh7 20. Re4 (20. Bf6!! forces mate even faster) 20... Qxc2 21. Bf6!

Black to move. He is completely helpless even though he can grab the second extra piece.
21… g5 22. Rh4+ Black resigns 1-0

It is interesting how White delivers attack on the dark squares, as Black’s bishop and queen are uselessly guarding the light ones.

Kasparov Wins TV Quiz Show

These days media often reports on Garry Kasparov as a politician (and not always with a positive twist), so by recently winning a Quiz Show in Georgia he reminded of himself as a prominent intellectual. For example he has written personal success and has supported revisionist theories on world history. Kasparov has been involved in the so called “What? Where? When?” show in Russia a few times, but those events were not as widely publicized. Does this success indicate that chess players are more intellectual than the average population? To me – this mostly indicates that Kasparov has fantastic memory, a lot of interests outside of chess, as well as enormous ambition and desire to win – at anything. I am hoping the video of this recent show will soon become available online.

“Что? Где? Когда?” has been a very popular Russian Tv Show for over 30 years.

Update as of February 26, here is the video of the show

Reading about Karpov – Kasparov duels – book review

Reading through Garry Kasparov’s record of his chess games , I get a bit of a better idea of why Kasparov and others claim that Karpov-Kasparov matches triggered the explosion of analysis and in depth study of various openings. Here is an example that struck me in particular: in game 16 of their 1986 match Kasparov got to the position on the diagram in his analysis and concluded that after 20… b4! the best chance for White is to play is 21. Rb3!

Kasparov – Karpov, 1986 match, analysis position from game 16

  White plays Ra3-b3! Rook and bishop are both attacked, but White moves the rook to another attacked square!

r3rbk1/1b1n1pp1/p2p1q1p/3P4/PppNP3/1R1B1N1P/1P3PP1/2BQR1K1 b - - 0 21

Amusingly, this whole line of the Zaitzev variation of the Spanish opening was then re-played 20 years later – in K.Lahno-E.L'Ami, Wijk aan Zee 2006, and probably in some other games. To me that seems to indicate that it takes 10-20 years for the chess world to catch up with Kasparov’s opening preparation from the pre-computer era.

Game 16 of the 1986 match is definitely one of the main highlights of Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess, Part Three: Kasparov v Karpov 1986-1987

Replay through the entire line with brief notes from Kasparov

Seirawan – Chess Duels: My Games with the World Champions - Book Review

I got this book as a gift for Christmas, having requested it because I had been a big fan of Yasser Seirawan’s annotations since having a large collection of “Inside Chess” magazines. Having been interested in any information about chess personalities, I probably learned more new facts about world champions than I ever did in the last ten years. With great respect for fellow chess player, Seirawan reveals a lot about top grandmasters – their personal strengths and weaknesses. Particularly interesting are his recollections of various episodes involving Garry Kasparov. The stories range from those of admiration for Kasparov’s ability to calculate variations (to the point of everyone in the room being quiet from awe), to those of confrontation with Kasparov over the board, when the World Champion would knock all piece off the board by pressing the clock too hard and having to apologize to Yasser.

Having scored well against older Mikhail Tal, Seirawan had less success against Anatoly Karpov (and no, he is not giving a clock simul here!)
Photo by Gerhard Hund

In addition to stories and anecdotes, the book is also full of analysis of all the games that Seirawan ever played against World Champions. Those games reveal the difference between a very strong grandmaster – and the great ones. And it is a very subtle difference indeed, so subtle that you need explanation from the player involved in those games to even feel it. Among other things the book shows that the champions are only human! Seirawan’s positional instincts and style have posed some problems for World Champions, but overall by virtue of being consistently better in various parts of the game – Spassky, Karpov and Kasparov have been able to post a positive score against him. It is somewhat indicative that the only game that Seirawan won against Kasparov – was won after Kasparov over pressed in Seirawan’s time trouble. It is possible to beat the best players in tense complications, but it is very difficult to outclass them, and Seirawan’s notes on every move explain the inner struggle between the players – the thinking behind choices of openings, time spent on each move, comments made by players after the game, etc – all those details that you will not find by looking at a game in a database.

The story about young Kasparov being a devoted communist is quite interesting
Photo from Owen Williams, the Kasparov Agency

Realities of professional chess players’ life, such as the need to travel and deal with time zone differences are explained very well in the book. The history of attempts to establish chess as a professional sport, starting from 1980’s and the GMA were also interesting to read about. The clash between FIDE and Kasparov in the 90’s, Moscow Olympiad of 1994 (which I had attended myself as spectator when I was a little boy), PCA tournaments and its quiet collapse are described in a lot more details than I had been aware of. If you are chess fan - Chess Duels: My Games with the World Champions by Yasser Seirawan is a great addition to your chess book collection.

Checkmate with 4 queens - from Alekhine to Kasparov

Reading Kasparov’s books is quite entertaining, and some parallels between various historic chess battles can be observed.
Kasparov – Karpov, 1986 match, game 22
After 43.Rb4!
Black’s king is vulnerable against the attack on the c1-h6 diagonal, and although I was familiar with this idea/position before, only now I noticed that the main line of the combination contained a pretty mate:
43. Rb4 Rxb4 (Karpov actually played 43… Rc4) 44. axb4 d4 45. b5 d3 46. b6 d2 47. b7 d1=Q 48. b8=Q

Both sides have a new queen, but White’s threats are more dangerous, Qf4 is a threat.
48… Qc1 49. Nxg6 Qxg6 50. Qh8+ Qh7 51. Qgxg7#

Checkmate! Does that look familiar?

Well, now all sorts of bells start ringing, and indeed, I found a similar mate in another book by Kasparov:
Capablanca – Alekhine, 1927, Game 11
Checkmate after 67. Qh1#

Sometimes it’s worth digging a bit deeper into trees of variations in Kasparov’s books as now I understand why every time he mentions game 22 of the 1986 match, he calls it a “study like win”. It is also not surprising that Kasparov thinks that Alekhine is the World Champion with chess style most similar to his own.

A tactic that Karpov and Kasparov both missed

Karpov – Georgadze, 1983

  Black to move. Where should the rook retreat?
In this position Black played 24… Rcc8 and experienced difficulties after White transferred the knight to c6. He later lost the game.
In his book “My 100 wins” (1984) Anatoly Karpov instead recommended 24… Rc7 (presumably to make sure that Be7 is guarded when White knight arrives to c6) 25. Nb4 Qf5 – “starting the counter attack as soon as possible”. There is a little tactical problem with that suggestion, that Karpov probably overlooked. It is ironic that Kasparov later copied the entire annotation in his Volume 5 of “My Great Predecessors”, without spotting the mistake (and I am pretty sure it is a mistake, since White gets to win a pawn or exchange on a spot without obvious compensation). That just goes to show that even world champions should blunder check their recommendations with engines (although of course there were no engines when Karpov’s book was first published).

Here is the position after Karpov’s suggested improvement of “Rc5-c7”.

White to move. How to win material immediately?

Book Review - Garry Kasparov's Greatest Chess Games by Igor Stohl

My blog entries are usually driven by analyzing games, and I must have not done much of that in the last month or so, thus the shortage of posts. Recently I have mostly been following chess events, in Moscow, London and Wijk An Zee. Sergei Shipov from http://crestbook.com has been putting up amazing video reviews of each round, and I have tried to watch every one of them.

This post is mostly a quick note that Garry Kasparov's Greatest Chess Games, Volume 2  by Igor Stohl is a very good collection of games of this great player. Annotations are written in context of Kasparov’s opening repertoire and give good insight into the second part of his career, as it progressed from 1994 to 2005, including arguably his best years in 1999-2002. I studied the games that directly included the openings that I play, but I would like to do a more thorough review of all games in the book that were played in Open Sicilian, as I can foresee that getting insights of Kasparov’s understanding of these structures is beneficial beyond learning the specific variations.

I will only give a quick taste of what Kasparov’s style was like at his prime – when he was able to combine superior opening preparation with aggressive play in the middlegame. In both games, in the same line of the Sveshnikov Sicilian, Kasparov developed strong attack against opponent’s king, and when his queen was attacked, he responded with completely unexpected counter strikes (ok, in my books these moves were as unexpected as a move at a GM level ever gets!). One of the combinations was played against Kramnik, making that game even more remarkable.

Kasparov – Kramnik, 1994

  White to move. Replay the game

Kasparov-Lautier, 1994

White to move. Replay the game

 

 

Summary: I am strongly considering getting Volume 1 as well!

The End of the Soviet Chess School

Flipping through “Learning from the Champions” by L.B. Hansen, I came across his comments about Kramnik losing the 2008 World Championship to Anand and Russia not winning the Chess Olympiad in 2008 the third time in a row. The author seemed to correlate the recent lack of successes from the Russian players to the fact that the methodology of serious preparation and methodical study of various aspects of the game advocated by the Soviet Chess school is somewhat out of date. Hansen claims that calculated risk and specific preparation are the new extra components that are often the decisive factors. He does have a point that the old methods are no longer bullet proof, even thought I am not sure if using the Olympiad serves his argument well. In 2004 the winner was Ukraine, and 2006 and 2008 – Armenia. Both nations were parts of former USSR (Soviet Chess School had impact outside of Russia). However, world champion now is Anand, and highest rated player until recently was Topalov, and now is Carlsen. Topalov speaks Russian very well, but none of these 3 players ever lived in the USSR.

What happened? I think the recent decade and the rise of a Norwegian super player show one thing: the Internet and computers happened. Any player has access to so much chess information and strong opposition that the concept of a “school” no longer plays such an important role, in the sense that living in Moscow does not give too many advantages over living in a small town. Hansen emphasises concrete approach, but that’s what Soviet chess school has been all about – concrete preparation. In my opinion there was nothing wrong with the Soviet Chess school as far as the ideas behind how you should study chess are concerned, it’s just that computers have taken it all to the next level. While Botvinnik made a study of a pawn structure, such as French Winawer, and Botvinnik Variation in the Slav defence, Alexandra Kosteniuk now prepares a novelty around move 30 that a computer came up with – check out her video with an example. In this position, Alexandra's computer gave here a little hint during preparation, and 3 moves after it was played over the board, it was all over:
  Black to move r5k1/pbpn2pp/1p1pp1r1/5p2/2PP1P2/P2BPN1q/1P2Q2P/R1B2R1K b - - 0 18
Here are the things that computers allow you, and facilitate specific preparation without the need for a coach:
1) determine at least a rough evaluation of a concrete position, something that could take days before the mid 90s. The position may or may not be in the database, either way you have much better ability to get to its objective evaluation
2) store results of analysis and quickly retrieve it later, right before the game against the opponent who is likely to play it
3) play a ton of games against strong opposition without living in major city
4) practice a particular position against computer (even though it won't smoke cigarettes in your face, like Ragozin did for Botvinnik)

It is interesting that Kasparov, who always advocated the scientific approach to preparation, became even more stronger around 1999 –2001 when computer engines became very strong. Specific preparation with computers and calculated risk based on engine analysis were the exact logical extension of what Botvinnik came up with in the 30s, in his brochure about how he prepared for the match against Flohr. Some people would even claim that “Soviet Chess School” never existed. When I told this to a master from Saint Petersburg a few years ago, he laughed at me and asked: “Ok, then what kind of chess school existed? Maybe a Cuban chess school?”

Internet Blitz Chess – it’s all about concentration

A few years ago I got a great deal for a set of wireless mouse and keyboard (less than $40 CAD in total). And it’s been serving me great because cables annoy me (there is already too many of them around my desk). The only times the wireless mouse bothered me was when replacing batteries, and when playing blitz games: the control over the cursor is just not as tight as with a regular mouse. Recently I played a few games with a different mouse and noticed that my blitz EXPERIENCE is dramatically better. I feel a lot more confident and in the last game – I managed to outplay an opponent from a completely hopeless position and win on time. That got me thinking. With a bad mouse, I surely play moves  a bit slower, but I rarely drop a queen. A better mouse may gain me 10-20 seconds per game, but is that really what makes such a difference? Sometimes it does, but I realized that the level of concentration I am able to achieve – is what really loses or wins 3 minute online games. I have not read Hikaru Nakamura and Bruce Harper’s recent book Bullet Chess: One Minute To Mate, but I am sure it talks about this. This also is true for regular games. Garry Kasparov in his foreword to Secrets of Chess Training by Dvoretsky, mentioned that ability to concentrate is one of the most important factors for success in chess.

When I win blitz games online
- The pieces and the board are convenient to see, the user interface is quick and responsive (I don’t need to think about it)
- The mouse is not there, the moves come from my brain, not from my fingers
- There is nobody talking to me while I am playing. TV is turned off

When I lose blitz games online
- I am tired before the game even begins
- I need to keep resizing the board to get it to be convenient
- I keep banging the mouse against whatever surface it’s on, because the surface is crap, and every move costs me mental energy that’s being wasted on getting the mouse to do what I want (move that darn pawn one square forward, not two, will you?)
- Someone starts talking to me to right when me and my opponent are down to the last 30 seconds

Cordless Mouse? Thanks, but no thanks!

Book review: Kasparov: How His Predecessors Misled Him About Chess

I've got myself a copy of Kasparov: How His Predecessors Misled Him About Chess. Since I have a copy of all the seven recent Kasparov's volumes, I could not resist getting something that builds up on Kasparov's work. This book is a collection of games by world champions with references to similar themes in Kasparov's own games. It is written in a pretty entertaining style, the tone being appropriately a parody on Kasparov's tone in his "Predecessors" volumes.

The correlation between Kasparov and his predecessors' games in some examples seemed pretty obvious, but others were a bit more of the type "Alekhine played the Slav, and look, here Kasparov plays the Slav too", or "Capablanca executed a bishop sacrifice on h7, and here is a similar one played by Junior against Garry". The ones I was more interested were the endgames that Karpov drew or won, and then ones with similar material where Garry either lost or failed to win. The idea that Kasparov might have known about Karpov's games and drew wrong conclusions from them actually seems not that far fetched. It also allows to compare the skills of two players, since opening knowledge (which improves among all players as time goes) here is not relevant.

Database files for chess books

Having recently flipped through all 7 of Kasparov's recent books (5 volumes of My Great Predecessors, Revolution in the 70s and the latest Kasparov-Karpov 1975- 1985), I want to have the games in a computer database. What a common nerdy desire! Books are great for calmly re-playing through the moves, but what if I want to add a variation refuting Kasparov's analysis (notes on the margin?), or reference a game from the book in my own analyzed game? I also want to have a collection of games that are useful for understanding the middlegames arising from the openings that I play, and Kasparov's books are good for learning about historic development of plans and ideas (but only some games are relevant to my repertoire).

Seems like I already paid for the contents of the books, I would not be violating anything by having them on my computer (especially - if they are without annotations). A while back gambitchess.com started a great collection of database files for published books, but they don't have Kasparov's books. Yet looking around the Internet, I can only find 2nd and 4th volume of My Great Predecessors in pgn/chessbase formats. Chessgames.com has the collections of games that I need, but I can't download them in one shot without becoming a paid member. Seems like I might just have to download them one by one ...

Book Review - Modern Chess Series, Part 1: Revolution in the 70's (Modern Chess) by Garry Kasparov

 

I have always found that learning a historic overview of an opening line is the most efficient way to understand the meaning of opening variations. In any major opening there is a myriad of deviations on every move, so knowing - why a certain line has become the main line is crucial to being able to remember the theory of any variation. In explaining the development of major modern opening systems lies the main value of this book, and Kasparov is in the best position to provide such an overview, since he himself was learning the opening for the first time throughout the seventies. Here are several random examples of what Kasparov brings to the table:

- detailed overview of the Hedgehog system

- historic development of the Sveshnikov varation in the Sicilian, but also a lot of information on the up to date theory

- explanation of how and why the Advance variation in the French defence became popular again

So Kasparov definitely succeeds in providing a truly useful book, and also a unique one in a way, since no one has done such an overview to the best of my knowledge. As for proving out that the seventies was the time of a particular revolution - that I don't think he truly convinced me in. The modern opening systems had already take current shape by then (that happened in 50s and 60s), and computers have not arrived yet the way they did in the nineties, so I still don't think that Sveshnikov variation or Hedgehog alone can be considered a revolution. In most other openings there was more of an evolution than revolution, so in my view Garry might as well have written a book title "Revolution in the 60s" or "Revolution in the 90s" (in fact I secretly hope that he will :))

Zenit wins UEFA cup - is soccer just like chess?

Zenit from Saint Petersburg won the UEFA cup in great style (or so it seems from looking at the goals from their last two games). 4:0 against Bayern Munich and 2:0 against Glasgo Rangers - those are really impressive results, but the 2 goals from the final match are even more impressive. The main childhood memory I had from Russian soccer was "clumsy". I guess the dutch coaches have had something to do with changing things for the better.

I find that in a long chess match opponents seem to be of equal strength, but at some point one of them makes a mistake and if the other player is really stronger - he should punish such a mistake and make it look easy. I find that Arshavin's pass that perfectly went through the Rangers' defence and found the Zenit attacker is in many ways similar to how in Kasparov - Anand match (1995) Kasparov's rook travelled across the board and found its target - the c2 pawn. In both cases the opponent could never recover after a killer shot ...