December 2004 Archives

I'm not sure why they don't wait to rate the many games being played right now, but FIDE has released the January 2005 rating list. As expected, Kasparov's +5 performance at the Russian Championship allowed him to stay above the 2800 level, if barely. That Anand has had such an incredible two years and is still below that mark is testimony to how hard it is to achieve, even with rating inflation. (Not just mathematical, but how there are so many more 2700s than a decade ago. To score a 2800 performance against the top 10 players in 1990 required a full point more than to do so today.) Topalov moved to #3 without playing thanks to Kramnik's loss of a few points in his match with Leko.

The only new face in the top 10 is Etienne Bacrot. The French former "world's youngest GM" has shot up in the past year and comes in at #9. Certainly "top ten" has more value than the rating itself. (He only played five games, so it's more a case of others dropping.) Judit Polgar (the real #9) isn't on the list due to inactivity. She's back in action at Corus in a few weeks.

Hikaru Nakamura's tremendous performances at the US Championship and in his match with Sergey Karjakin weren't rated, so his expected jump to the top 50 didn't happen. As usual with the FIDE list, various corrections will likely be made until, oh, it's time for the next list.

The latest:

No one seems to be considering the effects of Fischer living in Iceland. It's not an easy place to hide in, assuming he wants to stay out of the spotlight. Every chess event in Iceland would be obscured by "will Bobby show up?" speculation. Every visiting player will be inundated with Fischer questions. If Kasparov, Kramnik, or Karpov set foot in Iceland the rumor mill would be out of control.

Iceland has hosted many great events in recent years, thanks partly to the work of the amazing Hrókurinn chess club. Having all future chess activity overshadowed by Fischer is of dubious value, unless he has a dramatic change of heart (and brain) and decides to be helpful and/or quiet. Fischer remaining a recluse would be better than Fischer sounding off with outrageous statements.

Of course it would be fantastic if Bobby got his head on straight and became a positive ambassador of the sport, although it's probably too late for that in more ways than one. A fresh start can do wonders, and just maybe the Icelandic show of kindness might spark something. More likely, we'd see more of Fischer's habit of biting the hand that feeds.

With Corus Wijk aan Zee starting on Jan. 14th, it's tempting to look beyond the current crop of interesting tournaments. Events with obscure names like Drammen and Harmonie are strong and interesting. Traditional tournaments in Pamplona, Hastings, and Reggio Emilia also provide a fun mix of players.

It's a shame that many fans (and media) only pay attention when the top-10 are in action. Consider that most chess fans can't tell a 2700 game from a 2500 game (and that there IS no difference 80% of the time, statistically speaking). Then factor in that games between 2700s are drawn 70% of the time (not including rapids) and you realize it's mostly a matter of celebrity.

This isn't to say the top tenners aren't better players or that they aren't capable of playing spectacular manifestations of genius out of reach of the lumpen-proletariat GM class. The elite are the elite for a reason and they deserve our attention. Still, it's a fact that these days the best way to distinguish category 20 from category 13 tournaments is by the percentage of draws.

I'm doing a Christmas article on chess jokes for ChessBase.com. Yes, yes, I know that just about all the chess jokes you've ever heard, particularly those reprinted regularly in chess magazines, are stupid. But there are a few decent ones and we thought it would be a light holiday piece.

Off the top of my head I know four: two ancient groaners, one not bad but still Reader's Digest level, and one cute one. I won't give them in full here, which would preempt tomorrow's article; the descriptions will suffice for those who know them not to post them. If you have one not included, post it. Give a source if you have it. It might be interesting to see how far back they go. My four:

1) The excruciating "chess nuts boasting in an open foyer" joke. AKA the only chess joke anyone seems to know and the joke you always know you are about to hear when someone says "you're a chessplayer right? I heard a chess joke the other day...

2) The dog playing chess in the park joke. Immortalized last year at ChessBase with a video of Alexander Roshal telling it. We're laughing with you, Sasha!

3) Dead chessplaying buddy returns as a ghost. Yes, there's chess in heaven. The bad news is...

4) The actually funny one. Mercifully short. Bc4 Italian. Bb5 Spanish. Ba6 Belgian! (Insert nationality or ethnicity to be denigrated. I heard it from a Dutchman, so Belgian.)

You might wonder what keeps the servers humming around here and what keeps me in cat food and dark chocolate. (Don't worry, the cat food is for the cats.) While there is a "coalition of the willing to pay Mig," the rent is mostly paid by subscribers to the ChessNinja newsletters, White Belt and Black Belt. Note the subtle header on this page.

ChessNinja just passed its second anniverary. That's 209 weekly newsletters and 623 Daily Dirt entries, not to mention tens of thousands of message board posts. I wanted to see how it would do on the cheap, doing everything myself without paying for any advertising and only occasionally paying for freelance content. It has done well, mostly thanks to a great feedback loop with the readers, and I thank them.

For 2005 I thought it was time to push it up to a new level. This requires investing in content and I figured I'd start at the top. Last month 2004 US women's champion Jennifer Shahade came on board. This month it's 2005 US champ Hikaru Nakamura. (I'll eschew the exclamation points.) The next issue of Black Belt will include his annotations of his key win over Kaidanov in the US Championship.

The financial model of ChessNinja is based on my favorite saying: pixels are cheap. With no printing or distribution costs it costs the same to send to 1,000 people as to send to one. So I set the price incredibly low and make it up in volume, as the old joke goes. Paying for content disturbs this balance, at least at first. I don't want to raise the price ($5/mo. for four issues of Black Belt. $3/mo. for four issues of White Belt. $/6/mo. for both.) I'll need between 60 and 100 new subscribers to get back to the same profit level. With great stuff from Jennifer and Hikaru, and others who will be contributing, I don't think it will be a problem. And I'm willing to give it some time. Plus, current subscribers will be rewarded with a superior product, no small thing.

So here it is, the first ever subscribe link in the Daily Dirt. There are links to sample issues above. Any questions about the newsletters or anything else with running this crazy show are welcome.

I was just looking at the round five games of the Petrosian Memorial Internet Championship. France upset Russia, with a little help from Alexander Khalifman's mouse, so it appears. In this position, popularized by Radjabov last year, Khalifman played the uninspiring 18...Rb7?? 19.d6 1-0. It's obvious he meant to play the normal move 18...Rb6. The official site has round reports, and I'm sure they'll bring this up.

When I helped organize the first internet supertournament back in 2000 (the KasparovChess.com Grand Prix, won by Piket over Kasparov in the final), we added a "clock press" button to the interface for those players not used to internet chess. (We also let people play on regular boards with a relay if they insisted.) With the "clock press" option on, you made your move on the board and then clicked a "send" button. If you didn't click the send button in three seconds, the move was retracted. At first we were concerned you could use this to look at a variation, but really that would be too distracting. Several players who didn't have computer chess experience used it and it saved a few slips like Khalifman's.

Losing an important game (China is now in the lead by a point) on a mouse slip seems a little draconian. The game wasn't even out of theory and the move played loses an entire rook.

One of the most popular chess debates, right after "best ever" and "how many GMs can dance on the head a pawn" is who was the strongest player never to become world champion. Discarding for convenience and tradition the recent spate of FIDE titlists, only 14 people have held the highest title.

What gets less attention is that the list of challengers is also very short. Before Petrosian successfully defended his title against Spassky in 1966, it hadn't been done since Alekhine beat Bogoljubow in 1934! Zukertort, Chigorin, Gunsberg, Marshall, Tarrasch, Janowski, Schlechter, Bogoljubow, Bronstein, Korchnoi, Short, Anand, and Leko. That's 13 failed challengers vs 14 champions, amazing. I consider this a good argument for the "champ as #1" principle. Anand and Leko still have legit chances to make this list even shorter. (I'm tempted to include Kamsky because even if Karpov's title wasn't legit, the cycle Kamsky won was just as tough.)

Kasparov is currently working on the Korchnoi section of Volume 5 of his My Great Predecessors book series. It is by far the largest section of any non-champion. When it comes to the eternal question of best non-champ, Kasparov has several rationales. If longevity at the top is factored in, Korchnoi wins hands down. But he was never the strongest player on the planet, something Kasparov says could be said of Keres at the end of the 30's. Rubinstein is the other member of this hallowed-if-frustrated trio.

All the wires have a note reporting that the US government has contacted the Icelandic government about Iceland's offer of a residency permit to Bobby Fischer. The only quote they all give is vague:

But Aljazeera seems to have a later development (in an AFP report):

So the question is whether they will or not. The US "suggestion" to Iceland may just be gamesmanship. The US can act like they care so as not to appear to coddle someone who cheered 9/11, Iceland can make a show of standing up to the US, and they both get what they want. My theory that the US just wants Fischer to disappear will be largely proven wrong if they move to extradite. But basically if they don't get him, they probably didn't want him.

Nice long chess scene in the 1944 Irene Dunne vehicle The White Cliffs of Dover on my beloved Turner Classic Movies right now. Two elderly players, one English, one American, argue about whether the variation they are playing originated with Blackburne or Pillsbury. "Blackburne played it in the Hastings Tournament of '95." "No, it was Pillsbury at Paris 1900!" They go as far as whether or not the lunge of a pawn was typical of Blackburne and whether or not Pillsbury could "play rings around any British player."

I'm not geek enough to freeze the board at different moments to reconstruct the position on the board, although they got the white square on the right. I'm impressed enough that the script included such knowledgeable chess conversation. (Both tournament references are correct.) Both authors of the movie were born in Austria-Hungary.

Coincidentally, I just watched Searching for Bobby Fischer on cable for the first time in a decade. Good film, funny to see Benjamin and others in the tournament scene. Some of the chess bits are annoying, but not as bad as The Luzhin Defense and its idiotic ending, far from the Nabokov book in every way.

Jennifer Lopez and Hikaru Nakamura were on television together a few days ago. No, he hasn't made his Tonight Show debut yet (that still may happen). The giant NY1 news channel has a segment in the morning where they go over interesting bits in the local papers. One they chose the other day was the New York Post's coverage of Nakamura's win in the US Championship.

There aren't any photos in the online version.

I finally posted a large photo gallery at the 2005 US Championship website. It's not exhaustive, so if you want to see a pic of your favorite player, let me know. I tried to cover some of players who didn't appear in the daily reviews. I hate sites with puny little pics, so these are quite large and not over-compressed. One of my other peeves about tournament sites are photos without captions, so all of these are labeled. All of the pics are by me and John Henderson.

With all the talk of changing rules and scoring systems to discourage draws and encourage fighting chess, it looks like putting up some cash works pretty well. Jim Roberts, one of the founders of America's Foundation for Chess, created a $5,000 "Bent Larsen Prize" for this year's US Championship. It was won by Alex Fishbein, who had only one draw and battled hard in every game.

It could be a coincidence, but the "statistics of drawishness" were way down compared to the 2003 Championship. Of course not every event can put up that kind of money, and it might have a similar effect if put into the top prizes. Still, this sort of bonus money is fun and it adds spice for the players and fans. Even someone who isn't in the running for the top places has a positive, as opposed to punitive, reason to play extra hard.

A similar award was given to Ljubo Ljubojevic (hi Inky!) at the 1994 Polugaevsky Sicilian Thematic tournament in Buenos Aires. He came last, but won three games in a row near the end was honored by the organizers for his fighting spirit. That was an impromptu award, much like the one AF4C president Erik Anderson sprang on Shabalov and Akobian after the 2003 US Championship. These bonuses are subjective so I don't know if the players would prefer to see them in place of bigger overall prize funds.

The field for Linares 2005 is complete. It's Kasparov, Anand, Leko, Topalov, Adams, Kasimdzhanov, and Vallejo. Kramnik was on the first and second lists of participants I saw, but won't be playing. I don't know at what stage negotiations broke down. He has been replaced by the FIDE champion, a comic twist. Linares continues with the bizarre seven-player field for no apparent reason.

According to TWIC, Iceland has granted Bobby Fischer a residency permit. This could pave the way for Japan sending Fischer to the site of his conquest of the world title in 1972. Having him on a fairly remote island seems like a good idea. In my opinion the US will be delighted to let Fischer go to Iceland and out of the news. I don't expect anything more than pro forma comments from the US, if that.

There are those, especially Fischer himself, that feel he has been the subject of a long-standing manhunt, so now we'll find out. (The US could put up a fight in countless ways if they were really after him.) In October Fischer wrote a typically deranged letter to Iceland's embassador in Japan. He then complained that Iceland had abandoned him. Icelandic psychiatrists are licking their chops.

Former US co-champ Stuart Rachels recently wrote to New In Chess magazine to diagnose Fischer as a paranoid schizophrenic from afar. I've long held that view, but of course it's just a casual opinion. Such cases are often difficult to diagnose even after close examination. It's doubtful anyone will get close enough to Fischer to ever know.

While perusing the playing field of the upcoming "4th AMPLICO AIG LIFE Rapid Tournament" I noticed that Michal Krasenkow is the second seed, after Short, with a 2676 rating. A few years ago he had jumped up to the top ten, then fell out of the top 100, then back to the top 40, then out of the top 100 again. Now he's back in the top 30. The rating chart generated by ChessBase for Krasenkow looks like a healthy cardiogram.

I'm not picking on the affable Pole, whom I first met in Buenos Aires in 1998. I just find the extreme fluctuation interesting. The consensus has long been that what separates the super-elite is consistency. For a while you heard a lot about how the top-ten were top-40 players with better technique and better openings. The 1999 FIDE KO world championship, with its largely unheralded finalists, contributed to this myth.

There was much talk of how the top players exploited the system to preserve their ratings. There is some truth to this, since you can finish -1 in supertournaments and stay in the top-20 forever. But players like Krasenkow and Piket show how hard it is to score even that -1 consistently. I would love to see a more dynamic FIDE rating formula, but even with the stodgy system we have it's remarkable how stable the top 10 is. Even the top 20 is usual suspects with just a few transients from year to year. Yep, talent exists.

Of course if you have to play in open and team events in which you regularly face opponents rated 100-200 points lower than you, it's almost impossible to keep a consistent rating at any level. Still, reaching 2700 doesn't mean a free ride on the gravy train.

If a mantra of the 60's was "don't trust anyone over 30," maybe we need our own version: Never invite anyone over 20." Just look at the challenge match between US champ Hikaru Nakamura and Sergey Karjakin in Cuernavaca, Mexico. (Nakamura won game five and the match yesterday.) With one game still to play, four out of five games have been decisive and the only draw was an exciting 60-mover that ended in a dead rook endgame. It's enough to help you forget this year's Linares and Dortmund draw-fests.

Of course there are reasons for this beyond fighting spirit. Most youngsters don't have the hyper-prepared openings that lead to so many drawish positions or the technique that means drawn endgames are drawn. But attitude gets most of the credit. "Black to play and draw" hasn't sunk in yet. Their innate optimism leads them to play to win inferior (or equal) positions instead of trying to draw them asap.

This doesn't need to be the latest log on the "how to solve the draw problem" fire. Draws are a natural part of the game. But I believe that a few years of legislation could lead to a needed mental sea change. Eliminate draw offers, see what happens. More extreme attempts can wait. Prohibiting move repetitions, as in Shogi, is a bit much. (Think of the effects: no more sacrifices for perpetual check.)

Here's a thread just for the playa-haters so we can stay on topic in the other posts. To recap Kasparov's recent crimes against humanity:

Chess: +5 undefeated clear first in Russian championship ahead of Grischuk, Svidler, Morozevich, et al. Kramnik didn't play. Clearly it is unfair for a 41-year-old to be finishing ahead of three young top-10 players.

Chess politics: Wrote open letter to FIDE during Olympiad over their continuing with Dubai plans (since dropped) while ignoring Turkey's offer to host Kasparov-Kasimdzhanov match.

Merc: The English edition of My Great Precessors Vol. 4 on Bobby Fischer and other great Western players just came out. In it, Kasparov postulates that Fischer was far from a lock to beat Karpov in the cancelled 1975 match.

Checkmate! : My First Chess Book came out in October. Stirs controversy by saying a pawn can move one or two squares on its first move.

ChessBase "Fritz Trainer" DVDs with Kasparov on the Queen's Gambit and the Najdorf released. "Champion edition" of Fritz 8 with Kasparov video lessons.

Extra-curricular: Appeared in NY with silver-medal-winning US women's Olympiad team his Foundation sponsored and trained. (Also rumors of baby-eating, as yet unconfirmed.)

Politics: Continued to criticize Vladimir Putin for various anti-democratic actions in Russia, as well as for interference in disputed Ukraine election.

Commentary: A few cheapos about the Brissago match being boring (largely similar to those made by just about everyone else in the chess world, the last three games notwithstanding), but got through three interviews without a serious poke at Kramnik.

Although it's best to stick to these most recent horrors, we'll understand if you can't resist the classics.

As has now been documented here at ChessBase.com, the January Dubai match between FIDE champ Kasimdzhanov and FIDE #1 Kasparov has been terminated. At least negotiations with the Dubai guys have been cut off and there is no hope of a match anywhere before April or May.

Sheik Mohammad's negotiator was such a sweet talker that had just about everyone believing it was for real. (But not Kasparov, who was called a liar by Ilyumzhinov assistant Balgabaev when he publicly denounced the status of the Dubai negotiations.) FIDE has again been proven a band of inept fabulists. Now the spotlight falls on Turkish federation honcho Ali Nihat Yazici, who has been criticizing the Dubai bid and saying he's sure he can bring K-K to Turkey.

That gives FIDE more time to say something intelligent about their plans for after the match. Yesterday Kasparov joked that getting a match to happen was harder than playing in one. Making it a useful step toward unification will be even harder. To get Kramnik to buy in (or at least to put pressure on him to do so), FIDE needs a blueprint for where they want things to go after a match between the Kasimdzhanov-Kasparov winner and Kramnik. The old last-second dictatorship knock-out isn't going to cut it. Recognizing the ACP and beginning work - in public - on an acceptable WC cycle would be a start.

One thing I missed while I was in San Diego, other than a decent bagel, was Garry Kasparov's book signing at Barnes and Noble on the weekend. Volume IV on Fischer and other Western greats is in stores now. (At first Garry accidentally went to the wrong B&N, where they, unsurprisingly, had no idea what he was talking about.) This is the first of the My Great Predecessors titles to come out first in English and Kasparov says the analysis quality is the highest yet.

Despite the huge number of books on Fischer, mostly on the '72 match, modern, in-depth analysis of his games is sparse. According to Kasparov there are many old mistakes and omissions have been ignored and perpetuated for decades. (At least the ones he considers important in Vol. 4.) Soltis came out with the enjoyable Bobby Fischer Rediscovered last year. Silman lists some Fischer game collections in this review of Rediscovered.

In seven hours I'll be talking to Kasparov about this new book, among other things. If you post quickly you can have your good question for Kasparov on Fischer included in the interview. The video of it will be on ChessBase Magazine, with text excerpts at chessbase.com in a day or two.

Yow, finally back and yes, I'm still alive. Thanks for asking. San Diego was nice, or so I hear. I never saw it other than the trip from and back to the airport. I did get into the La Jolla for two hours on the last day I was there. Monday was supposed to be my free day to check out the area and my girlfriend Ann came from NY for the last few days. Instead I ended up doing exciting things like trying to update the official site with final info while everything was being torn down and packed up around me.

Ann's a video artist and was also put to work, filming the last days of the tournament for ChessBase Magazine and on Monday filming my interview with new champion Hikaru Nakamura. We also did a quick "commercial" with Nakamura for the AF4C to send to the Tonight Show. I suppose they wanted to see if the new chess star had whatever qualities they are looking for. (How bad can you be next to Jay Leno?) Hikaru won't need much work on his comic timing. "One advantage I had in winning the championship is that most of my opponents were old guys, like 30 or 40!"

Some footage Ann got Sunday night will make some chess fans drool in anticipation. The same day he wins the US Championship, Nakamura is in the lobby of the hotel playing game after game of 1-minute chess against all comers, mostly with Gata Kamsky! I've never seen Anand play 1-minute games, but let's just say that if Ilyumzhinov's next brilliant plan is to make the world championship a one-day 1-minute knock-out, we could have an American world champion sooner than we think. Unbelievable.

Nakamura, who turns 17 today, is currently in Cuernavaca, Mexico for a six-game match against 14-year-old Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine. It's classical chess and the first game is today. We'll be covering it at ChessBase.com.