Tag: chess

Chess reading for the week – April 1st

Here are some interesting chess posts for the week:



From wired.com : Chess Boxing Demands a Rare Breed of Human: The ‘Nerdlete’
    “What makes a better chess boxer, a boxer who can think strategically or a chess player who can throw a punch?

     The rules in chess boxing are simple. There are 11 rounds and players alternate between boxing and chess. The boxing rounds last three minutes and the chess rounds last four. You win by knockout or checkmate. If neither of those is achieved, the boxer with the highest number of points wins.
Chess boxing partly appeals to the same white-collar people who are drawn to things like fight clubs — mild-mannered professionals that need to let out their angst.”

From NPR : Chess for Success
You can either listen to the 12min podcast with GM Maurice Ashley here or read the transcript here. Its funny!
    “The “Frankenstein-Dracula,” the “King’s Indian” and the “Fried Liver” are all famous ways to do what? As this week’s V.I.P., International Grandmaster of chess Maurice Ashley, knows, they’re all strategies to begin a chess match. In this episode, Ashley divulges his own chess-playing strategy that combines Zen-like meditation with CIA-like mind games.”

From chessprofessionals.org : ACP Tournament of the Year
Not sure if tournament organizers have any incentive to figure their tournament in this list, but its a good start and hopefully will improve the quality of tournaments; for players, spectators and the fans worldwide.
    “ACP Tournament of the Year 2012 Tata Steel Chess, Wijk aan Zee
     Best Round Robin event of 2012: Tata Steel Chess, Wijk aan Zee
     Best Open event of 2012: Tradewise Gibraltar Festival
     Best official event of 2012: World Chess Championship Match Anand-Gelfand, Moscow”

From chessbase.com : A Game of Chicken: Ivanov rides again
The controversy just doesn’t seem to die. In fact, this will not be the last, till some tighter controls are in place.
    “In the last weeks of 2012 he wowed the chess world with a 2700 performance. Two months later the new Bulgarian star FM Borislav Ivanov finished 88th in the Plovdiv, this time with a performance of 1970. Then came another enviable achievement, a clear win at the Villava rapid (again with a 2700 performance). What is going on? Alex Karaivanov speculates, with new video analysis by Valeri Lilov.”

From BBC : A Point of View: Chess and 18th Century artificial intelligence
A different point of view!
    “Now, the Turk fascinates me for several reasons. First, because it displays an odd, haunting hole in human reasoning. Common sense should have told the people who watched and challenged it that for the Turk to have really been a chess-playing machine, it would have had to have been the latest in a long sequence of such machines. For there to be a mechanical Turk who played chess, there would have had to have been, 10 years before, a mechanical Greek who played draughts.”

♔ Awesome cartoon!

Grischuk caught on camera

While watching the Grischuk – Kramnik post match interview video (see below), I could not help but notice Grischuk’s body language in the beginning of the video.
What must be going through his mind?

Even more interesting is the below video during his game with Kramnik. In the dying stages, he looks at the clock maybe every second or two (losing precious seconds in the process!). If he glances at the clock so often, how would he even be calculating the position.

(Please forward the video and watch from 2hrs 48mins onwards till he makes his move around 02hrs 50mins)

And finally, the most amazing off-the-board blunder by a Chess player I have ever seen. Probably Grischuk’s worst move ever!

(see what happens when Grischuk arrives at the board)


(If the embedded video does not work, you can watch it on Youtube)

Chess reading for the week – March 22

Here are some interesting chess posts for the week:

From Chessvibes.com : Open letter: “Please store and publish games including times”
I personally support this idea. It would nice to study master games knowing what was “home-cooked” and what came out of the grey matter.
“For instance the recent played game Ivanchuk-Svidler in the 3rd round of the London Candidates: Ivanchuk ran out of time at an early stage in the game and although his position wasn’t lost, he eventually lost on time. Who would recall these circumstances when reenact the game from a database that doesn’t provide clock time information? Technically it should be possible”

From chess-news.ru : Hikaru Nakamura’s Open Letter Vis-a-Vis the Grand Prix Series
Open letter sent by the manager of GM Hikaru Nakamura.
“It is with great disappointment that the chess world has recently learned, indirectly, that Agon is unable to fulfill its obligations in finding the funding for the Lisbon leg of the Grand Prix. Whether or not the funding has been found for further stages of the Grand Prix is ​​unclear as well.”

From chess-news.ru : Andrew Paulson: “I Found It Particularly Absurd That the Player Would Publish an Open Letter”
Paulson’s theory over using the outrageous red color pieces is frankly absurd. Also has his comments about the above open letter from GM Nakamura.
“Historically, chess pieces were made of ivory and coral – traditionally they were red and white. So from a purely historical point of view we can say there’s some justification here. Making the pieces red was necessary in order to make them stand out from black and white; my feeling at the moment is that on the tablets, on decent computers they’re perfectly readable as long as the screen has a good resolution.”

From polygon.com : Ex-convict creates chess-based puzzle game to teach children to make better choices
“I’m trying to spark the idea into anyone else who comes from my circumstances that they can do anything they put their mind to,” Brown said. “If you disguise learning with fun, a child will return for more.
Brown was arrested in 1999 after robbing two men of $110 and their driver’s licenses, and began serving his 10-year sentence the following year. During that time he focused on playing chess to keep himself out of conflict with the guards and other inmates. While in solitary confinement, he and other prisoners would draw chess boards on the floor and call out moves between cells in order to play. Two years before he was released, Brown sent his mother detailed blueprints of what eventually would become Chess King.”

From The Indian Express: India back in reckoning to host World Chess Championship
Take this news with a tspoon of salt. Going by past history, it can cause severe heart break if you are an Indian chess fan.
“The WCC final was one of the topics on the agenda when FIDE vice president Ali Nihat Yazici met Singh earlier this year. Yazici also confirmed the possibility. “The main subjects (of discussion with the minister) as you may guess were CIS (FIDE’s Chess in Schools program) in India and the World Championship match. For me it looks like India may host the next World Chess Championship match between WCC GM Anand and his challenger. Let’s wait and see,” he said.”

♔ Magnus on why he comes 10-15mins early for the round: “Honestly, I’m just dead nervous about the zero tolerance rule.”

Revisiting Linares 1998

Today is the day when Anand won his first Linares title in 1998 (yeah Carlsen was just 8 years old!). Anand again won Linares nearly a decade later in 2007 and 2008!
The “Wimbledon of Chess” was played from 22-Feb-1998 to 9-Mar-1998.

XV Ciudad de Linares (ESP), 1998 ————————————————————— 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ————————————————————— 1 Viswanathan Anand g IND ** 1= 0= == 1= =1 =1 7½ 2 Alexei Shirov g ESP 0= ** == =1 10 10 11 7 3 Garry Kasparov g RUS 1= == ** == == == == 6½ 4 Vladimir Kramnik g RUS == =0 == ** =1 == 1= 6½ 5 Peter Svidler g RUS 0= 01 == =0 ** 10 =1 5½ 6 Vassily Ivanchuk g UKR =0 01 == == 01 ** 0= 5 7 Veselin Topalov g BUL =0 00 == 0= =0 1= ** 4

Here are some interesting games from each round.

Round 1 – Shirov 0-1 Anand, rest drawn

Shirov – Anand, 0-1
A rare concentration of heavy pieces around a pawn!

Shirov – Anand, 0-1
Final winning position

I consider this a model game where the two Rooks nicely outplay the White Queen.

Round 2 – All games decisive. Anand 1-0 Svidler. Ivanchuk blunders!

Ivanchuk – Shirov, 0-1
Position after Ivanchuk’s 30.Rf3??
Black to play and win (solution at the bottom)


Round 3 – Kasparov defeats Anand, Ivanchuk blunders again!

Svidler – Ivanchuk, 1-0
Position after Ivanchuk’s 47…Nb7
White to play and win


Round 4, 5 – All games drawn

Round 6 – Shirov on fire, rest drawn


Shirov – Svidler, 1-0
Position after Black’s 25…g6
White to play and win

Round 7 – Topalov wins his first, Ivanchuk loses his 3rd


Ivanchuk – Topalov, 0-1
Position after Black’s 51…Kg5
Ivanchuk chose the fastest way to lose and
played 52. Rxh4 and resigned immediately


Round 8 – All drawn
Round 9 – Ivanchuk defeats Shirov, rest drawn.


Shirov – Ivanchuk, 0-1
A position that could have been!

Round 10
Topalov – Shirov, 0-1
How did Shirov choose to end the game?
Black to play and win
Ivanchuk – Svidler, 1-0
Can White stop the Black pawn on a3?
White to play and win
Round 11 – Svidler 1-0 Topalov, Shirov 1-0 Kramnik
Round 12 – Kramnik 1-0 Svidler, Anand’s master piece!
Ivanchuk – Anand, 0-1
Can you find a win for Black?
Black to play and win
Round 13 (last round) – Svidler 1-0 Shirov, Anand 1-0 Topalov

Anand – Topalov, 1-0
Position after Black’s 27…c5
After Anand’s Nb6+, Topalov gave up his Queen
and went on to lose 50 moves later
And thus Anand edged out Shirov to win Linares 1998!
Tid bits
  • Mighty Kasparov (2825) could only win one game and drew the rest of them to remain undefeated!
  • Shirov (placed 2nd) won the most games (five)


Solutions

Ivanchuk – Shirov
30… Rxe4 0-1

Svidler – Ivanchuk
48. Qxe5 dxe5 49. Rxd7 1-0

Shirov – Svidler
26. Bd7 Rd8 27. Be6 Re8 28. Qg5 1-0

Topalov – Shirov
47… Bh3! 48. gxh3 Kf5 49. Kf2 Ke4 50. Bxf6 d4 51. Be7 Kd3
52. Bc5 Kc4 53. Be7 Kb3 0-1

Ivanchuk – Svidler
47. Bc8 Kf7 48. h6 a2 49. Bxe6+ Kxe6 50. h7 a1=Q 51. h8=Q
and White went on to win in few more moves 1-0

Ivanchuk – Anand
21… Bxd5 22. exd5 Rxc2!! 23. Kxc2 Qxa2 24. f4 Rc8+
25. Kd2 Bxf4+ 26. Ke2 Qxb2+ 27. Kf3 Rc1 0-1

Download these games

Categories
android chessbookstudy

Read Google Books using Chess Book Study Android app

Chess Book Study v2.0.1 now has a full built-in browser based on Zirco, the open-source browser.
With this the good news is that you can use the browser to read Google Books!
Here is how you can do it:
Step 1: Click “Open Web” and type http://books.google.com in the URL bar as shown below.

Once the page is loaded, click “My Library“. If you are on a Phone or other small screen device, you may need to scroll to the bottom of the page to see “My Library”

Step 2: Once you click “My Library”, Google will ask you to enter your username and password to sign-in. Enter your details and click “Sign in”. You can choose the “Remember password” option if you like. Once you are logged in, you can select your book from the “My Books on Google Play” list.

 Step 3: Once you choose a book above, it would load the book details. Now click on the Book Icon (highlighted below). In some cases, you would see a “Read Now” option to the left. If not, simply click the book image.

Step 4: The book will be loaded and you can move through the book.

In the coming months, I shall improve the experience of reading books online.

(Edit Apr 28) Note 0: The app may crash on some devices while trying this method. I am working on it!
Note 1: Google Books are proprietary and closed source. Hence it is not easy for the app to read the books offline.
Note 2: Unfortunately, Amazon Kindle books are not supported since Amazon currently only supports a limited set of browsers.

Which country has the most Titled (GM, WGM, IM etc) Chess players after Russia?

♚ Strongest Nations (by Avg rating of the Top 10 players of that country)

  Country Avg rating
1 Russia 2747
2 Ukraine 2704
3 China 2669
4 France 2663
5 Hungary 2661
6 Armenia 2661
7 United States of America 2654
8 Azerbaijan 2653
9 India 2639
10 Netherlands 2636

as of 2-Mar-2013

♚ Countries with most GMs

  Country Avg rating GMs
1 Russia 2747 216
2 Ukraine 2704 80
3 Germany 2629 80
4 United States of America 2654 77
5 Hungary 2661 52
6 Serbia 2587 52
7 France 2663 47
8 Spain 2589 41
9 Israel 2623 39
10 Poland 2633 35
11 England 2620 35
12 Bulgaria 2614 35

as of 2-Mar-2013

♚ Trivia: Which country has the most Titled (GM, WGM, IM etc) Chess players after Russia?

  Country Avg rating GMs IMs Total Titled
1 Russia 2747 216 501 2178
2 Germany 2629 80 233 1198
3 United States of America 2654 77 121 583
4 Serbia 2587 52 106 550
5 Ukraine 2704 80 197 493
6 Spain 2589 41 107 491
7 Hungary 2661 52 108 420
8 France 2663 47 95 357
9 Poland 2633 35 101 332
10 Netherlands 2636 30 78 293

as of 2-Mar-2013

I was quite surprised to see that after Russia, Germany has the most Titled players. And Germany has double the number than that of 3rd placed USA!

Germany’s top player is Arkadij Naiditsch who is #39 in the rankings. Go Germany!

PS. The number above seem to include non-active players too

Source: http://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml

Categories
ichess

How to practice Chess Openings with iChess

iChess v3.1.3 was released today with several bug fixes and stability improvements.

As you know, iChess is great for solving the pre-shipped puzzles as well as any PGN-puzzle file that you may have.
One minor unplanned feature, which was released in v3.1.3 is the support for studying Chess openings.
You make moves for the winning side while iChess plays the other side.

Here is how you can do it:
1. Prepare a PGN file with your favorite opening lines. This will be your opening repertoire.
It is better to have each variation as a separate game in the PGN. For your preferred side, mark the game as won, in the PGN. Say you like to play the Kings Indian with Black. Then save the full or partial game and mark it as 0-1 (in the game header). 
(This is the most important step for any serious Chess player and once you have your repertoire PGN ready, it can be used for many other functions within Chessbase PC software.)


2. Open the puzzle file in iChess.
3. Now just like regular puzzles, iChess will ask you to make the best move. One additional feature is that, if the game result it 0-1 (Black wins), then iChess will automatically make the first move for White. You make the best move for Black.

Ofcourse, you can use a Hint and all other iChess goodies!

This can be a good opening workout and imprint your favorite variations in memory. (Note: Even the top players need to “memorize” their opening lines”)

This nice little feature can also be used for Solitaire or Guess the Move kind of Chess. Load a PGN with master games and try to guess the moves for the winning side!

Note: Currently, iChess does not give points for every move you make, but only for the complete game.

Categories
android

Chess Book Study v2.0 released!


Chess Book Study has graduated to v2.0 with lots of features and improvements and I am very excited with this release.

What’s new?
☆ EBookDroid has been upgraded to 1.5.6. CBS now supports all the features of ebookdroid like Auto Crop, Split, Search etc.

☆ Works well with other Chess apps. Now “Copy PGN” can immediately open the position in Chess for Android or DroidFish apps. You can save the PGN from that app.
☆ Quick access to Board options. No long press required.
☆ Improved “Open Web” feature. Now incorporates a full fledged open source zirco browser (with some minor changes)
☆ Book and Board positions can be swapped. See Board Settings. Also has a left handed mode!
☆ Hold the left/right arrows to jump to start or end board positions.
☆ Many other UI and experience improvements like bigger coordinates, board background, always-on arrows, new Edit Board layout
☆ Bug fixes. May they RIP!

NB. Incase if the app crashes after upgrade, then simply uninstall and re-install both the apps.

Get it from the Play Store or download the Free version from my Google docs.

Edit. Chess Book Study v2.0.1 released with a bug fix in Edit Board screen in landscape mode (Thx Abel)
EBookDroid (Chess) v1.5.6.2.3 released with bug fix related to menu options on some devices.  (Thx Karlo)

Caruana wins Zurich Blitz; Anand last

The Zurich Chess Challenge blitz touranament was won by Caruana (2757)!
World Chess Champion, Anand (2780) finished last in the 4 player round robin tournament.
Anand lost 0-2 to both Kramnik and Caruana and won 1.5-0.5 against Gelfand! (I hope its part of his tournament strategy!)
Check out this huge blunder by Anand against Kramnik. 
Position after Black’s 44…axb3

Here, Anand played Rxb3?? and immediately resigned. What madness!

Report by Mark Crowther http://theweekinchess.com/chessnews/events/zurich-chess-challenge-2013/caruana-edges-out-kramnik-in-zuerich-opening-blitz

All blitz games can be viewed at the official site http://www.zurich-cc.com/games.html

The standard time control tournament starts today at 15:00 UTC+1.

Kasparov, Chess, Computers and Innovation!

Recently I watched a pretty investing video of Kasparov talking to authors@Googlers.
He talks at length about chess, computers and innovation.

At the start of the video, the host talks about Kasparov’s article in the NYTimes. In that long article, Kasparov gives a nice insight  into the world of chess and computers.

In particular, the following point struck me:
“Like so much else in our technology-rich and innovation-poor modern world, chess computing has fallen prey to incrementalism and the demands of the market. Brute-force programs play the best chess, so why bother with anything else? Why waste time and money experimenting with new and innovative ideas when we already know what works? Such thinking should horrify anyone worthy of the name of scientist, but it seems, tragically, to be the norm.”

Here is a link to that article. Worth reading!

This reminds me of Larry Page’s legendary 10x comment. 10% increment is not enough. Make it 10 times better!