Chess Links of the Year - 2014

Chess news, blog updates, latest articles come and go every day, most of them not worth following, but some are either particularly interesting, or will be remembered for years to come, so here is my view on what was worth highlighting in the RSS news reader for 2014 in the "Chess" folder:

• January
• Systems are better than goals
• February
• Lomonosov Tablebases Online Access
• March
• Chess Position Trainer 5 Manual Available
• Magnus Carlsen gives away 3 Draws at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Chess Simul
• May
• Data-driven Look at the Evolution of Chess
• July
• How [Lichess] training puzzles are generated 
• ChessxX 1.2.0 "Typewriter"
• August
• Judit Polgar to retire from professional chess - Polgar Retirement
• Why Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is so powerful?
• Chess Books in the Internet Archive
• September
• ICOfY Base 14.2.1 is released
• 20 years of The Week in Chess - 20 years
• November
• Vladimir Kramnik: "Petrosian's chess legacy helped me a lot in my match vs Kasparov"
• ChessBase 13: everything you wanted to know
• December
• Lysyj and Gunina become 2014 Russian Chess Champions
• Chess and Meditation

Top Chess News and 12 Best Combinations of 2014

I have been closely following the chess news for the year as I was compiling collections of tactics from each month, and here is a summary of what happened in the chess world during 2014:

The highlight of January 2014 was the traditional Wijk Aan Zee tournament, won by Levon Aronian.

 Harikrishna – Nakamura White to move

The highlight of February 2014 was the Zurich Chess Challenge, with the average rating of 2801, the highest in chess history. It was won by Magnus Carlsen, but in one of the examples in the book he fell victim to a decisive sacrifice by Caruana. The real gem of the tournament, however was the exchange of rook sacrifices between Nakamura and Aronian, where in all three games (blitz, classical and rapid) White delivered a rook/exchange sacrifice against Black's kingside. The idea was brilliant, as White won in all three games! Other major tournaments this month were the Gibraltar and Moscow opens, which also had a lot of instructive combinations.

 Nakamura – Aronian White to move

The highlight of March 2014 was Candidates Tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia that determined the challenger for World Champion Magnus Carlsen. It was won by Vishy Anand, with a great result of +3, a full point a head of Sergey Karjakin who came second. The other major tournament this month was the European championship, which also had a lot of instructive combinations. It was won in great style by Alexander Motylev.

 Aronian – Mamedyarov White to move

The highlight of April 2014 was the Vugar Gashimov Memorial held in Shamkir, Azerbaijan. It was won by the World Champion Magnus Carlsen, who despite losing two games, scored 6.5/10. Caruana was second with 5.5 points. The other major tournaments this month were the Women's Rapid and Blitz World Championships held in Khanty-Mansiysk, which were won by Kateryna Lagno and Anna Muzychuk respectively. Earlier that month Khanty-Mansiysk also hosted the Women's FIDE Grand Prix tournament, won by Hou Yifan, so April was truly a month of Women's chess in that city.

Caruana – Carlsen, White to move

After the major top tournaments of the first 4 months of the year, May was a relatively quiet month on the top scene. But, of course, still a lot of tournaments were played at different levels, including top GM round robins - Capablanca memorial in Havana, won by Wesley So, and Karpov's tournament in Poikovsky, won by Morozevich. Several combinations in this edition also come from the Italian team championship, and the Czech national championship.

 White to move

June features an expanded edition, with over a hundred combinations, to cover the Rapid and Blitz World Championships in Dubai, in addition to the Stavanger Super Tournament in Norway. The former were both convincingly won by Magnus Carlsen, while Sergey Karjakin deprived the Norwegian World Champion of a home victory and took first place in the latter.

 Topalov – Grischuk Black to move

July edition again covers over a hundred combinations, coming from Women's European Championship (won by Gunina), Dortmund, won by Caruana, and many other tournaments. The chess world is now awaiting the Olympiad in Tromso, so the August Monthly Tactics will have no shortage of combinations to choose from!

Final position from Caruana – Ponomariov

August edition covers over a hundred combinations, mostly coming from the Tromso Chess Olympiad, which was won by China in the Open tournament, and by Russia in the Women's Section.

 Lagno – Dohdal, White to move

The major tournaments of September 2014 were happening in Bilbao, Spain. The European team championship was won by SOCAR club from Azerbaijan in the open event, and Georgian club Nona in the female section. Anand won the Bilbao Masters chess tournament, held at the same time and location, ahead of Aronian. The October edition will cover the first stage of the next World Championship which will begin with the Grand Prix tournament in Baku, with the world's strongest grandmasters participating.

 White to move

The major tournaments of October 2014 were the two FIDE Grand Prix tournaments, in Baku and Tashkent. The former was won by Caruana and Gelfand, while in the latter Andreikin took the first place. Lu Shanglei and Aleksandra Goryachkina won the titles in the World Juniors championships in India. Giri-Shirov friendly match was another highlight, and two combinations from the match are featured here. The November edition will cover the World Championship Match in Sochi between Carlsen and Anand, as well as the Petrosian Memorial in Moscow with the world's strongest grandmasters participating.

Shirov – Vedder, White to move

The main event of November 2014 was the World Championship Match in Sochi between Carlsen and Anand, where Carlsen retained his title. Other major events were the Petrosian Memorial in Moscow with the world's strongest grandmasters participating (won by Grischuk), and the Tal memorial - a blitz tournament held as a side event in Sochi between many super grandmasters, this year's replacement for the annual Tal Memorial in Moscow (won by Mamedyarov).

 Carlsen – Anand, Black to move

December saw Anand win the London Classic tournament, ahead of Kramnik and Giri.

 Kramnik – Nakamura, White to move

Chess World Championship Preview - Deja Vu - Combinations by Anand and Carlsen

The second match between Anand and Carlsen is approaching, and it was almost exactly a year ago that I wrote this post below. If you are wondering why these two players are still the best in the world, studying their combinations may give the answers!

 Chess World Championship Preview - Combinations by Anand and Carlsen:
The World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand has been anticipated throughout the chess world since Carlsen qualified from the London Candidates tournament, and there has been no shortage of forecasts. Rather than try to predict the winner, I released a new ebook that gives a preview of the match by showing the best combinations of each player - collected throughout their entire careers. You get a chance to play like the current world champion, or like the future one, if the title changes hands in the 2013 match.
Over 130 annotated test positions will help you better appreciate the enormous tactical strength of both players, while also serving as a tribute to the careers of both players.
You can get the book from Amazon here: World Championship Preview - Combinations by Anand and Carlsen 
.

Recommended for Watching - Funny Chess Moment with World No. 3 Alexander Grischuk - Video

I came across this post on the ChessQueen Blog, and it was worth sharing:
Funny Chess Moment with World No. 3 Alexander Grischuk - Video:

Carlsen–Anand - World Chess Championship 2014 to be in Sochi?

One of the more interesting chess news of the last few days just came in: World Chess Championship 2014 to be in Sochi - Announcement: The FIDE World Chess Championship match between champion Magnus Carlsen and his challenger Viswanathan Anand will be in Sochi, Russia 7th to 28th November 2014. There had been two deadlines for bids with no interest expressed.

Follow the link for more details on the announcement and the controversy. As Carlsen and Anand are gearing up to play the second match, in Sochi or elsewhere, you can study their styles and skills from one of my tactics ebooks - World Championship Preview - Combinations by Anand and Carlsen. Originally published before their 2013 match, the title took on the new meaning after Anand won the Candidates this March!

Chess News - Russian GM Alexander Morozevich wins XV Poikovsky Karpov Chess Tournament 2014

As reported by ChessBlog, Russian GM Alexander Morozevich wins XV Poikovsky Karpov Chess Tournament 2014:.

Having recently published two collections of Morozevich's combinations, I am glad to see that the former world's #2 player is in top form again. To recap, in the Practical Tactics Series: Attack with Alexander Morozevich - Selected Games and Best Combinations - includes Morozevich's combinations as White, while “Counterattack with Alexander Morozevich” focuses on his games as Black.

Chess News - World Champion Magnus Carlsen gives away 3 Draws at the Simul in Moscow

You might be surprised to hear in the news that Magnus Carlsen gives away 3 Draws at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Chess Simul ,especially given that the Simul was on only 13 boards. However this is one of the most prestigious technical universities in Russia, so to me this is not surprising at all, and is a bit reminiscent of the Bob Wade simul, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess

The worst result in a simultaneous exhibition given by a master occurred in 1951, when International Master Robert Wade gave a simultaneous exhibition against 30 Russian schoolboys, aged 14 and under. After 7 hours of play, Wade had lost 20 games and drawn the remaining 10 (16.7%)

Chess Questions - Is there a freely available online 7 piece Endgame tablebase?

Scanning through chess.stackexchange.com website for recent chess-related questions, I came across the following post that I'd also like to pose to the readers of this blog:

Is there a freely available online 7 piece Endgame tablebase?:
The only 7 piece site I heard about is http://tb7.chessok.com/ , and upon registration I am able to setup various positions with 2-6 pieces . However as soon as I setup a position with 7 piece, I get an error about service not being avaiable. Has anyone had better luck or know of any other site with 7 pieces tablebases?

7 piece endgame tablebases solve the mystery of many theoretical endgames, for example Rook endgames with 2 pawns vs. 1, which can be quite tactical if the pawns are on different flanks.

Fritz 13 Let’s Check Feature

Fritz 13 is adding a new feature that is called “Let’s check”. The feature allows to share engine analysis with other users and upload it to the “cloud”. Such analysis would be easy to look at in one of the Fritz panels:

The benefits of this kind of feature seem very exciting:

• it will allow fast access to all previously made engine analysis
• reduce the need to redundantly run engine on positions that someone else has analysed
• encourage sharing between chess players on an unprecedented scale
• it actually has a UI that is easy to understand. Convekta’s IDea still seems very complicated to me when I read explanations of how it works

The Video tutorials are brief and to the point:

But the scary aspects of the feature seem a lot more obvious:

• spying on each other – sounds like the option is on by default!
• in perspective, this takes us much closer to chess being completely solved
• ChessBase may control data contributed by many chess players, many engines and so on. While games are now being shared in databases produced by more than one vendor, ChessBase having billions of extra positions stored in their private databases will give them a monopoly over most of chess data, data contributed by their own users, who would now have to pay yearly membership fees to access that data.
• focus is on engine analysis, although I think this kind of system should have put emphasis on people’s verbal commentaries (Comments Network feature does seem to go in that direction though, although why not instead use existing GM comments that are spread out through their MegaBase already?)

Yes, this is just a tool to help players with what they do – use best engines to solve mysteries of various chess positions. Some would argue that this is inevitable anyway, but I find this tool more disturbing than anything else.

The biggest question I have though – for how long are they going to have enough storage space to maintain trillions of possible chess positions??

Botvinnik’s 100 anniversary

Mikhail Botvinnik was born exactly 100 years ago today, on August 17, 1911. There are quite a few events this year to celebrate this. I probably studied more Botvinnik’s games than the games of any other chess player, so recently I also made a series of videos for my youtube channel to share some of the lessons I learned from his books – you can watch them below.

The themes that percolate through Botvinnik’s 3 volume collection of best games are very wide spread, but the following immediately come to mind:

• creating and exploiting weak squares in opponent’s position
• the importance of correctly evaluating exchanging of pieces
• fight for initiative in the opening from the very first moves, both with White and Black
• deep preparation of home-made opening systems
• playing training games to study typical positions
• learning from the analysis of your own games, and applying those ideas in future games
• psychology of chess as a sport
• professional attitude to chess preparation and competitions
• impact of chess on personality and vice versa
• good understanding of weaknesses and strengths of your opponents

The list could go on and on. My blog also has a series of posts about Botvinnik.

Chess Strategy - Bovinnik attacks against the strong center

 Chess Strategy - Botvinnik Attacks in Isolated Pawn position

Attacking Chess - Botvinnik Finds a New Plan in the Opening

The art of chess planning from Mikhail Botvinnik

Chess Preparation - key improvement in Panov-Botvinnik attack

Chess Strategy - Botvinnik exploits a key weak square

Chess Strategy - Central Domination illustrated by Botvinnik

A typical Botvinnik game, according to Fischer

 Chess Strategy - Exploiting weak isolated pawn (Botvinnik - Zagoryansky)

Botvinnik - Ragozin - an overlooked counter attack

Botvinnik - Ragozin - gaining opening advantage in a chess game

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!

Watching the Candidates Matches

As I am watching the World Championship Candidates matches, I am surprised to see that Vladimir Kramnik is out, despite his absolutely amazing opening preparation. In several games against Radjabov and Grischuk he seemed to have barely made any moves of his own and yet he had a very hard time against Teimur, and even a harder time against Grischuk. I suppose that proves that chess a sport still lives! Knowing most openings “down to checkmate” does not guarantee success, even when accompanied by such a skill of middlegame and endgame that Kramnik has. It does however make the games a bit harder to follow as it is very hard to tell where the game actually begins.

Alexander Grischuk is through to the finals!

Chess Grandmaster Audio Interviews in Russian

Russian website http://chess-news.ru/ is one of the most informative and up-to-date Russian chess resources on the web, and it has a few audio interviews of grandmasters. Unfortunately I have not been able to find an audio podcast feed for these interviews, but with a little Google Reader search trick, I can download them almost as easily. Khalifman, Shipov, Karjakin, Vasjukov – this is a feast for a Russian Speaking chess fan.