Ask the
Tiger!
Hastings Chess Congress Pamplona Chess Tourney Don't Hate the French 2515.1 Help for Black Against 1.d4 Open Sicilians Giving Grade Levels to Books Akiba Rubinstein More Gifts from Santa 2485.4 Elista Diaries About Iran Why Is Chess So Addictive? How Many Chess Sets Do You Own? Mozilla & the Chessville Page Playing on ICC as a Guest New Year's Resolutions, Old & New 2505.1 Interesting FICS Stat 2512.1 2004 Foxwoods Open 2511.1 Rapid & Long Standard at FICS 2347.40 Bookstores Online (subtitle: The Fonseca Tower) 2492.1 ChessBase Puzzle 2495.1 Prowlerecmo's 12-move Win Sacrificial Curry Win 2496.1 OTB Training Partner Fun The "Train" of General Principles Anyone On "The Path to Improvement"? What Was the Top Chess News Story of 2003? 2490.1
GAMES Epishin,V (2658) - Lahno,K (2486) [E18] 1.d4 Nf6 Hebden,M (2560) - Conquest,S (2545) [D30] 1.d4 d5 Gormally,D (2471) - Hebden,M (2560) [C91] 1.e4 e5 Epishin,V (2658) - Conquest,S (2545) [E91] 1.d4 Nf6 Rogers,I - Lane,G [B32] 1.e4 c5 Conquest,S (2545) - Nielsen,P (2626) [A06] 1.Nf3 d5 Moen,A (2239) - Acs,P (2593) [E32] 33rd Rilton Cup Stockholm SWE (3), 29.12.2003 1.d4 Nf6 Ronchetti,N (2201) - Piscopo,P (2321) [B40] 1.e4 c5
Past issues of The Chessville Weekly can be viewed at our archives. |
Volume 3 Issue 1
January 4th, 2004 In This Issue
"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard
work and learning from failure."
from the editor...
Chess Award -
Vote for Top Chess Sites A while back Pete Blanchette told you all about the
Chess eXpress Rating service that his club uses.
If you're going to be in the Gastonia, NC area on Saturday, January 17th,
you can try it out for yourself. Pete will be hosting the 1st EVER CHESS
EXPRESS OPEN, a 5-round Swiss system Rapid tourney (Game/30).
Contact Pete for more information, or see the
tournament announcement.
Last week we asked you to tell us what you thought was the Top Chess News Story of 2003. The poll is now closed, the votes have been tabulated, and here's what you had to say: 47% felt the collapse of the World Championship Reunification Plan was the top chess news story. Second, with 18% was the USCF facing possible financial collapse, and the resulting shakeup in their leadership. Tied with 9% each were the Kasparov-Computer matches ending in draws (fitting somehow that this story ended up in a tie) and Hikaru Nakamura eclipsing Bobby Fischer's record for the youngest ever US GM. The poll may be closed, but there's still plenty of time to add your point of view.
White to move and win - Find the
Solution Online Chess League's Registration Closes: 14th January 2004 Are you looking for a slow time control team tournament? Are you unsatisfied with other online tourneys you have played in? If you answered "YES!!" to either of those questions, then we have the tournament league for you! The Online Chess League was founded for players like you - players who prefer slow time controls and healthy competition, as well as the chance to meet many great people. If you're looking for a team, no problem! We'll find you a slot. If you are already a member of a team, then sign up your team today! Sign Up Today, or get
More Information (1/4) The Hippopotamus Rises From the Swamp: IM Andrew Martin's famous Bits and Pieces column for January spotlights a little-known move-order which sidesteps a lot of the main lines and enables Black to deal with early aggression on his own terms. In this first of three games he looks at Serpik-Blatny, US Open Los Angeles 2003. (1/4) Review: The Great Players Kit from Convecta, reviewed by our resident expert Kevin Bidner. The “Great Players Kit” is a collection of the games of former World Champions Capablanca, Tal, Botvinnik, Lasker, and Alekhine and are aimed at intermediate and advanced players. This is the second installment in his series of reviews of Convekta products. Says Kevin, "...lo and behold, there is a terrific solution to maximizing your time and learning experience in studying the games of the masters." (1/4) Problem of the Week: Tactical training with our weekly puzzle. (1/4) Chessprint for January 4, 2004 "for the sheer joy of chess" (1/3) Review: The Italian Gambit by Jude Acers and George Laven, reviewed by Allan Savage. "When I received this manuscript to review, I almost fell off my chair. Jude Acers!! Talk about a blast from the past! Of course everyone knows Jude has been taking on all comers at the Gazebo in the French Quarter of New Orleans for nearly 30 years. But how many remember that even before that, Jude was a strong master, played matches with Fischer and Browne (1960s), and toured the country giving lectures and simultaneous exhibitions? As far as chess writing, he authored the legendary annotations to Grandmaster Chess (1975), the book of the 5th Lone Pine tournament..." (1/3) An Introduction to Correspondence Chess, Part One: Steve Ryan begins your personally guided tour of the fascinating and yes - exciting - world of Correspondence Chess (CC). "This series of articles will not teach you how to play chess, but they will give you some insight into how a CC club operates since the major rules of the game remain the same. The “different” rules merely accommodate the peculiarities encountered in the mode of transmitting the moves and the unique nature of correspondence play." (1/1) New additions to the MyChessSite downloads page: Aix les Bains ch-FRA Elite 2003 Tournament. Lautier, Bacrot, Dorfman, Bauer, Sokolov, etc. 66 games in a 13 kb zipped ChessBase file. (12/30) The Study of the Opening - Part Four: Continuing the journey of exploration of opening study with Diego Acosta and Tony Hahn, begun in Part One, Part Two, and Part Three: "In the first two parts of this article we discussed the importance of gathering games from top-level practice to learn the ideas about your repertoire openings. In Part Three we systematized the repertoire taking into consideration the ECO codes. Now we'll finish outlining the process as we see it."
(12/30)
What's
In A Name?: Another
Kennedy
Kids
story, from the creative mind of Rick Kennedy. "Mary was
arranging the pieces on the chess board. "I learned this one from my friend,
Georgie," she said. "What kind of a chess name is 'Georgie'?" I
skoffed. "Nobody in chess is named 'Georgie.'" "Actually," she said,
appearing a bit miffed, "Georgie is a great chess player." She had to
be kidding. "Right! Georgie Kasparov. Georgie Karpov. Georgie Fischer.
Georgie Polgar. They're all chess greats!" That silenced her,
for the moment... Read the whole story,
What's In A Name?
The Hippopotamus Rises From the Swamp I'm sure that the Modern Defence would be a lot more popular if Black could avoid the more aggressive White systems. I'm thinking of the Austrian Attack where White plays with an early f2-f4, or the very popular modern idea with Nf3, Be3,Qd2 and a quick Bh6, the so-called 150 attack. Yes, these blunt variations are a real threat. In this short article I'm going to suggest a little-known move-order which sidesteps a lot of the main lines and enables Black to deal with early aggression on his own terms. 1.e4 b6!? The Queen's Fianchetto Defence has a very poor reputation, quite unjustified in my opinion, but as I say, we are tinkering with the move order. 2.d4 Bb7 3.Bd3 Most White players go 3 Bd3 automatically, doubtless expecting 3...e6. 3...g6! Now that we have lured the Bishop to d3, the Double Fianchetto or Hippopotamus system becomes much more acceptable. 4.f4 White tries to blow Black away. 4...f5!
But this is the excellent reply which quite takes the initiative away from White. We move now to the recent Los Angeles Open Tournament where innovator Blatny will demonstrate the potential of Black's fourth move... This is the
first of three parts in IM Martin's look at The Hippo. See also
his other fine opening expositions in
Bits and Pieces.
The Italian Gambit The following review first appeared in Squares, and is reprinted by permission of Squares and Chessco. When I received this manuscript to review, I almost fell off my chair.
Jude Acers!! Talk about a blast from the past! Of course
everyone knows Jude has been taking on all comers at the Gazebo in the
French Quarter of New Orleans for nearly 30 years. But how many
remember that even before that, Jude was a strong master, played matches
with Fischer and Browne (1960s), and toured the country giving lectures
and simultaneous exhibitions? As far as chess writing, he authored
the legendary annotations to Grandmaster Chess (1975), the book
of the 5th Lone Pine tournament, and then virtual silence - until now. Read the rest of Allan's review:
Italian Gambit
An Introduction to Have you ever had a “Pen-pal” relationship with someone where letters went back and forth to some distant destination? You may have exchanged the latest news, personal information, and similar items. Correspondence Chess acts much like a Pen Pal system except the primary exchange of “news” or “personal information” consists of chess moves and, ideally, a bit of personal comment on the game and who knows, even a joke or two if the players feel so inclined. Many don’t, unfortunately, but I feel a bit of “giving out” enhances the game and adds interest. Your opponent becomes an actual human being this way, not merely someone to beat. In theory at least you could exchange moves by drum beats, smoke signals, telephone/telegraph, sky writing, semaphore flags, mirror reflections, bouncing lasers off the moon, mental telepathy, messages attached to dirigibles or anything else you can think of. But all of those have some inherent difficulties, so correspondence chess began with what we can loosely call “postal” chess. Correspondence games by post began a long time ago and many assertions have come forward as to when and where the first one started. The grandiose claims that the first one began in the reign of a particular monarch or between OTB clubs in different cities certainly have their spot in history, but so would a game conducted between two villagers a short distance apart, I believe. No one can say for sure. Such things tend to get lost in the “mists of time.” Read the rest of
Steve's personally guided tour of the fascinating Great Players Kit This is the second installment in the the series of Convekta software product reviews. The review is on the “Great Players Kit”, which is a collection of the games of former World Champions Capablanca, Tal, Botvinnik, Lasker, and Alekhine. The products are sold separately (see the Convekta site for international prices) for $29.95 US each or $99.95 for the complete set of five collections. These products are aimed at intermediate and advanced players. Everyone knows that all serious chess players must study the games of the great masters. The problem is… How? The key to learning from master games is to be able to first see the alternatives they saw, and second understand why they made the decisions they did, and then third, transfer that knowledge into our own decision making. That is is the goal, right? Well, we have books available, those are good, but playing out games from books is painfully slow - setting up positions, resetting the pieces for every variation… I have spent hours like this, only to realize that at least 1/3 of my invested time was spent setting up and moving around chess pieces and yet another third trying to remember where I was in the maze of variations. So yes, books are good, but in this day and age of magical chess software we can do much better right? OK so we have our chess software, and we can load up entire libraries of free game collections (see Chessville's own Games Collections or the Game Collection Links). Yes, here we can study the games of the masters, and play out the moves easily, but with no variations, comments, etc. Now maybe its just me, but when I play through a Capablanca game, I’m just not sure I’m getting all of the subtleties of the game… in fact most of the time I am scratching my head wondering what the hang is going on! Needless to say, plodding through the books starts to look good again. But, lo and behold, there is a terrific solution to maximizing your time and learning experience in studying the games of the masters. Convekta software has published a set of programs facilitating the study of Capablanca, Tal, Botvinnik, Lasker, and Alekhine. The programs are a terrific value to any serious student of the game. Here’s why... Find out why, read the rest of Kevin's review of the
Great Players Kit.
The Mad Aussie's Chess Trivia Sandglasses: Prior to the introduction of mechanical chess clocks in the mid to late 19th century, players would use sandglasses to work out how much time they could spend on their moves. Bare King: In early medieval times, one way for a player to win the game was to leave his opponent with a "bare king", i.e. no other pieces on the board. This rule survived in Iceland up to the middle of the 19th century. In some countries the "bare king" was considered an inferior form of victory, and if there was a prize stake for the game, the victor would only get a percentage of it. Submit your trivia to the
Mad Aussie! Pablo's Chess News Chessville coverage of:
Nielsen,P (2626) - Kotronias,V (2626) [E99] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1 Nd7 10.Be3 f5 11.f3 f4 12.Bf2 g5 13.a4 a5 14.Nd3 b6 15.Be1 Nf6 16.Nf2 h5 17.h3 Kh8 18.Nb5 Neg8 19.b4 Rf7 20.bxa5 bxa5 21.c5 Bf8 22.cxd6 cxd6 23.Rc1 Nh6 24.Rc4 Rg7 25.Qc2 g4 26.Bxa5 Qe8 27.h4 gxf3 28.Bxf3 Bg4 29.Bxg4 Nfxg4 30.Bb6 Qe7 31.Nxg4 Nxg4 32.Bf2 f3 33.g3 Ne3 34.Bxe3 Rxg3+ 35.Kf2 Rg2+ 36.Kxf3 Rxc2 37.Rxc2 Qxh4 38.Rg1 Rxa4 39.Nc3 Rc4 40.Ke2 Bh6 41.Bb6 Rxe4+ 0-1
other online chess news resources
GM Square
Chessbase IranMania: GM Qaem-maqami to raise fund for Bam Quake Victims About.com Chess - The Midnight Challenge, or 'Christmas in Russia' ChessWatch - with Gene Venable Lokasoft: Deep Sjeng in the 2003 World Computer Chess
British Chess
Magazine Online
U. of Texas at Dallas Wins Pan-Am Intercollegiate
Championship:
World
Chess Rating
Tim Krabbé's Open Chess Diary Greely Tribune: King of Queens
The Chess Cafe Chess Academy by
Igor Khmelnitsky WPVI.com: Blind Children Master Game of Chess Chris Kantack: Review - A Parent's Guide to Chess, by NM Dan Heisman
Chess Siberia Nielsen,P (2625) - Chuchelov,V (2600) [E11] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 Be7 5.Bg2 d5 6.Nf3 0-0 7.0-0 c6 8.Qb3 b6 9.Bf4 Nbd7 10.Nc3 Ba6 11.cxd5 cxd5 12.Nb5 Bxb5 13.Qxb5 a6 14.Qd3 b5 15.Rfc1 Qb6 16.Rc2 Rfc8 17.Rac1 Qd8 18.Bc7 Qf8 19.Qe3 h6 20.Ne5 Qe8 21.Nc6 Bf8 22.Ba5 Nc5 23.Nd8 Be7 24.Nxf7 Nb7 25.Qxe6 Rxc2 26.Ne5+ Kh7 27.Rxc2 Nxa5 28.Rc7 Bd8 29.Qf5+ Kh8 30.Rf7 Nc4 31.Ng6+ Kh7 32.Ne5+ Kh8 33.Rf8+ Qxf8 34.Ng6+ Kg8 35.Bxd5+ Qf7 36.Bxf7+ Kxf7 37.Nf4 Kg8 38.Qe6+ Kh7 39.e4 1-0 Lars Balzer homepage - updated
FIDE
1 Kasparov, Garry................. g
RUS 2831 6 13.04.63 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: GM's next move will be writing about it
The Campbell Report Salt Lake City Tribune: Checkmate!
Seagaard Chess Reviews
World
Chess Network RusBase Part Three - New Material from 1966 Chess Today - Website Redesigned Chess Journalists of America - New Web Site Chess Odyssey: Attitude Check #9--Perspective (Click on "Attitudes") The Philippine Star: Where's Bobby Fischer? Indian Express: TALKING WITH: VISHWANATHAN ANAND Annotated Games
Lubomir Kavalek (Washington Post) Robert Byrne (NY Times): Ramirez-Khenkin, Santo Domingo 2003
Jack Peters (LA Times) Feliks Kwiatkowski: McDonald-Kwiatkowski, Hastings Challengers 2001
The Telegraph Chess Club David Sands (Washington Times): Kudrin-Figler, Washington D.C. 2003 World Chess Rating - Game of the Week, January 3, 2004
Australian
Chess Federation - Australian Championships Puzzles & Problems
Chessville -
Problem of the Week Tell us about your favorite site that you would like us to
keep an eye on for you. Write:
Newsletter@Chessville.com Position of the Week: Solution
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Nbd7
5.e3 Be7 6.Nf3 0-0 7.cxd5 exd5 8.Bd3 Re8 9.0-0 c6 10.Qc2 Nf8 11.Rae1 Ne4
12.Bxe7 Qxe7 13.Bxe4 dxe4 14.Nd2 f5 15.f3 exf3 16.Nxf3 Be6 17.e4 fxe4
18.Rxe4 Rad8 19.Re5 h6 20.Ne4 Qb4 21.a3 Qc4 22.Qf2 Bf7 23.b3 Qxb3 [Diagramed
Position] 24.Nfd2 Qa2 25.Nc3 1-0
errata... Last week's diagram (Volume
2 Issue 52) was in error. Thanks to eagle-eyed reader Oliver Maas
for spotting the missing White rook from c8. |
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Quick Clicks Links to other interesting sites, from our
links
collection, this week from our
Scholastic page. 50 annotated chess games explained instructively for beginning players.
Available for viewing with a Java viewer. America's Foundation for Chess "Our mission is to strengthen the minds and character of young people by
advancing chess in our schools and culture." Starts with the absolute basics of the game, including rules, annotation
& how the pieces move, then proceeds to more advanced concepts through
approximately 100 instructive positions. Starts with the absolute basics of the game, including rules, annotation
& how the pieces move, then proceeds to more advanced concepts through
approximately 100 instructive positions. A non-profit organization which uses chess as a tool to teach values and
self-esteem to kids. 54 games annotated move by move. Highly instructive examples of the
principles of good chess. Chess Exercise Material by Prof. Chester Nuhmentz This site includes hundreds of pages of material for teaching chess that
can be downloaded and printed for free. Also featured are online quizzes,
workbooks that can be ordered, a serial chess story, and contests. Nice set of tutorials for players of different levels. Includes
recommended reading list for each level. Developing & Promoting Chess in the
Greater Chicago Area Youth chess instruction and resources.
GAMES Lahno,K (2486) - Hebden,M (2560) [C92] 1.e4 e5 Hebden,M (2560) - Rowson,J (2541) [D00] 1.d4 Nf6 Solomon,S - Xie,G [B30] 1.e4 c5 Rogers,I (2658) - Yu,R (2486) [E18] Australian Ch, 12.0029 1.e4 c6 Kotronias,V (2626) - Hebden,M (2560) [C96] 1.e4 e5 De Firmian,N (2553) - Seeman,T (2429) [B15] 1.e4 g6 Bellini,F (2503) - Ronchetti,N (2201) [B20] 1.e4 c5
The
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