January 2005 Archives

Balgabaev also blames the failure of the unification matches on "Kasparov's unreasonable financial demands." This is amusing if only because FIDE 1) guaranteed these amounts several times and 2) wanted an exorbitant amount itself for doing nothing.

But while FIDE was/is in a mess of its own making, it's true that players in these world championship matches have had unrealistic monetary expectations. That goes for Kasparov as well as Kramnik, whose match with Leko was delayed for years for a money hunt. With no external or organizational imperative to play, it makes sense for them to wait until the biggest money can be found. Why play for $250,000 now if you might get $400,000 in a year or two?

I'm not much into mythology, but god help us. Ilyumzhinov crony Berik Balgabaev told a Russian paper that FIDE will raise funds for another knock-out tournament. Gee, the last one went so well. They're almost out of places to hold these things. Where to next? North Korea with a plutonium trophy?

I'll have a long wrap-up at ChessBase.com soon, but wanted to kick-start the topic. It was a remarkably balanced event other than the bottom falling out for Morozevich and Sokolov. Leko was the only undefeated player, Sokolov the only one without a win. Like just about everyone I considered Anand the favorite, although I am on the record here as saying Leko would be my pick "if Anand were hit by a bus." He wasn't, but somewhat fittingly he lost to Leko.

Topalov was dazzling as usual, but you can't lose two games (another prediction that worked out for me) and win an event like this. Overall a spectacular tournament full of fighting chess and exciting games. The last round was a bit of a let-down; most of the games barely left theory. Kramnik's 11-mover with white against the out-of-form Morozevich is particularly vexing. At least van Wely got his first win. Karjakin won the B group, although the way he's going he might have been invited to the A group next year anyway!

The Gibtelecom Chess Festival is underway on the UK's tiny peninsula in Spain, Gibraltar. I was there ten years ago, quite a fascinating place. There are spectacular caves and on a clear day you can see Africa. The famous Rock also hosts the only monkeys native to Europe, which have apparently been put to work designing chess websites.

The Master's open has a very impressive field, led by Alexei Shirov. He recently posted here against playing in open tournaments without compensation, so an agreement must have been reached! Black Belt contributor Hikaru Nakamura has 2.5/3. His first round win against former British champ Michael Hennigan had this picturesque final position.

Not to turn this into the Jen Shahade news center, but by coincidence John Henderson sent me this link the other day. It's a recent TV piece on her that you can watch online.

Before we get down to serious analysis, I want to give a couple shout-outs, first to "Chess Moms," a label and T-shirt slogan for the hyper moms of would-be prodigies. Now Judit Polgar is leading the way in changing the meaning of "Chess Mom." True, women do sometimes drop out of chess once they start families. But certainly there are no statistics to show that those who do stick with it play any worse.

In fact, the most impressive results from the Mallorca Olympiad were from two-time mothers, Susan Polgar, (who had the highest performance in the event, 2622) and Viktoria Cmilyte, gold medallist on board one. Judit, in her first outing since the birth of her child Oliver started Wijk Ann Zee with a bang by defeating Peter Svidler in a clean defense from the Marshall Attack.

I was happy to see Judit win, but the game moved me for a more somber reason. I had spent six hours analyzing the white side of this line with IM Victor Frias. After too many sacrifices, and too much coffee, we got the strong sense that the white side of the Marshall is more fun than we originally imagined. The pressure is really on black, said Frias, to prove something. If black doesn't mate fast, white will gain counterplay in the center as well as the queenside. This was a typically lucid synopsis from Victor..

He deserves much credit for making me a champion. Before both my U.S. women's victories in 2002, 2004 (and 2003, when i lost in the playoff), I had marathon study sessions with Victor. After each of these, I emerged in love with chess and in energetic form. Frias passed away January 15 at the age of 49 – a huge loss to American chess.

[2002 and 2004 US women's champion Jennifer Shahade of Brooklyn contributes monthly to the Black Belt newsletter, from which this is an excerpt.]

The popular comic strip Baby Blues today starts a six-day series in which the father is teaching his kids how to play chess. (It actually ran in the papers a few weeks ago; the strips are delayed for two weeks on the web.) In the first one (Jan. 10, up now), Dad says "It's an ancient game of skill and strategy that is said to be one of the finest achievements of the human mind!" One excited kid then asks, "You're going to teach us how to play poker?" Ouch. [Thanks to vigilant reader Michael Whisenhunt of North Carolina.]

Today is the first day of National Chess Week in the UK. It raises money for the children's charity Barnardo's. It launched last October (photos and stories here and here.)

The official site makes much hay of celebrities who play chess. Madonna and Lennox Lewis are predictably trotted out. (We saw this story here last year.) Chess uses celebrities for image, but most of the celebrities use chess the same way. I'm sure some of them really like the game, and a few even back it up by sponsoring chess clubs and events. But much as many fictional characters use chess to show intelligence and depth, publicists and celebs use it too. I prefer 13-year-old Katie's Chess Week testimony about why she plays chess.

A very balanced event on paper has proven to be very balanced in practice. Four players are tied for the lead with +2. One of them is Anand, who has won three in a row. There has been a lot of great fighting chess so far. Only three players are without a loss: Leko, Adams, and Grischuk. Morozevich is performing his supertournament disappearing act even more dramatically than usual. His -5 performance has upset the crosstable much the way Timman often used to. (Moro always had a tough time against Timman, so maybe an invisible mantle has been passed.)

There are many games among the leaders to come, plus the always-anticipated Anand-Kramnik tomorrow. +4 is still looking good enough for clear first place in this tight field. Kudos to Ponomariov for some exciting chess. He's showing the fire that earned him the FIDE Ch in 2001 and second place in Linares in 2002.

The Association of Chess Professionals issued a brief statement (see below) on Kasparov's withdrawal from the FIDE/Kasimdzhanov/Turkey/unification match. (Unless of course the money magically appears in the next few days, at which point Kasparov's letter will look like a clever negotiating tool.)

Kramnik/ACP have been "ready to cooperate" for a long time. The question is whether they are ready to lead and to do something like put together a new cycle, find sponsorship, and put money where their mouth is. If they do, the pressure will be on Ilyumzhinov to bring FIDE to the table or be cut out of the picture. (Perhaps not a bad thing considering their weapons of match destruction.) The longer things are open, the more likely FIDE is to come up with something horrible. That could be another KO, replacing Kasparov, or something even worse.

The international chess federation has issued a press release responding to Garry Kasparov's "unilateral withdrawal" from the 2005 unification match against Rustam Kasimdzhanov that had been scheduled for Turkey in April. In it, they say that if only Kasparov had waited one more week (until Jan. 25), that the monetary guarantees the players demanded would have been there.

Yes, well, that's just it, isn't it? It's always one more week. Then another, then another, and then it turns out your sheik is really just another exile from Lawrence of Arabia with too much time and too little money. And if it turns out to be true this time, against all possible odds, and the money comes through next week, it is almost a sure thing that it wouldn't have been true had Kasparov not put his foot down at last. But let's not have that "what next?" discussion until it happens. Of course when it doesn't happen FIDE will say it's because of Kasparov's letter, which is really the point of their press release: prepare the blame.

The Mainichi Daily News again has the best recap of the latest Bobby Fischer news. Fischer's supporters are trying the tactic of accusing the Japanese government of kowtowing to the US. I'm not sure if insulting the people holding the keys to your cell is the best idea. The Japanese courts still say they aren't prepared to send Fischer to Iceland since the default is to deport to country of origin. (Methinks Fischer should have changed his nationality asap after celebrating 9/11 on a radio interview.) I'm just amazed that this tortuous limbo has continued for so long. (You can find the other Fischer updates by searching for his name on the left.)

Overdue or premature? The end of the best hope for unification or the end of something that never should have existed? Say what you will, and there's a lot to say. Garry Kasparov today issued a press release (see below) to explain the end of his negotiations for his match with FIDE champ Kasimdzhanov. Kasparov has been kicking himself for the past month about having had to cancel his invitation to Corus Wijk aan Zee because of the doomed FIDE match. (Hey, at least he waited for the off day.)

The entire point of having Kasparov play the FIDE champion was quick and messy unification with the classical champion, the FIDE champion, and the world #1. That was almost three years ago. With quick out of the picture we were left with messy. With FIDE in charge it went directly to ugly and pathetic.

Now it's over, but what's next? Kramnik might decide that a unification match against Kasimdzhanov is better than one against the winner of Kasparov and Kasimdzhanov. Even Kasparov couldn't guess what FIDE's reaction would be. Ilyumzhinov doesn't like being upstaged, so it could be dramatic. Will a new cycle rise from the ashes? Will the ACP and FIDE do more than spell DIP CAFE? And will the record for Daily Dirt comments be broken?

Not that you can tell, but this is the 400th Daily Dirt entry. That it has taken over two years to get here proves that perhaps "daily" wasn't the best name, but it was never really intended to be a destination site. I mostly wanted a place to put small items not worthy of a full article and someplace to link to from my ChessBase articles when I launched ChessNinja so people could find out about the newsletters. Now that there are over 5,000 readers every day I feel pressure to actually provide something. (Even if it's waffle meta-content like this.)

When Leonard "The Dean" Barden said kind words about the Daily Dirt in his legendary Guardian column a few weeks ago I felt that maybe I had become too establishment (when I finished feeling delighted). After all, my shaved head and leather jacket aren't visible online.

So thanks for reading and especially for commenting. We've had posts from GMs, super-GMs, US champions, and USCF presidents, and I know from email that people out there are listening. So speak up! (I'll note here that this publishing system masks your email address so it's not picked up by spam-bots, so feel free to post as a real human instead of an anonymous coward, as Slashdot calls them.)

A curious editorial in the UK Sunday Times about chess for kids in Scotland. It's a little confusing because it blends in coverage of another initiative for teaching Scottish history. The general idea seems to be that chess will decrease violence. There's more:

Chess: cure for all of society's ills. Who knew?

Today's first round was as close as Corus comes to a boring day of chess. The sheer size of the event is what saves it. Having 14 players (Linares has seven) means a broader range of ratings and increases the chance that a few will be hot and a few will be cold. And having seven games each day means even if you have three pathetic draws like today you'll still have a few good games. (A full report with analysis will be up soon at ChessBase.com.)

Had FIDE not botched the handling of the Kasparov-Kasimdzhanov match - insisting it would be in January - Kasparov would be playing in Wijk aan Zee now. As he pointed out to me, it would probably have been the first time the top nine rated players in the world faced off in the same event.

Kasparov is also annoyed that Kramnik declined his Linares invitation this year. From what I can tell, his obsession with getting revenge against Kramnik isn't much shared in the chess world. Most fans will be more interested in his games against Anand, who has clearly surpassed Kramnik in the past year or two and has played better chess than anyone.

If you have no trouble with differential equations and are looking for a challenge, check out the rules for the recently completed 2004-05 Hastings Congress. (Won by my old KasparovChess coworker Vladimir Belov, now all grown up. Good job!)

1,871 words are needed to explain the rules. They didn't have the money to run a traditional Premier section, so it was combined with the Challengers in a KO with "lucky losers," players who lost but were needed to fill out the next round of the draw and so moved on anyway.

Of more interest than the tournament format was the time control:

Rationale isn't given, but I assume it was to encourage more decisive results and so avoid playoff games. After all, if this equalizes the colors, wouldn't both players fight equally hard for a win and so produce more decisive games? Not a bad theory, but at least this time around it didn't work out. White still won more games and 44% of the games were drawn.

Two schools of thought to start out with. 1) Without either side starting with a clear advantage, the mathematical chance of a draw is higher. This is obvious if you take the game as a science. But because almost all draws are agreed in positions still with considerable potential to produce a decisive result, this isn't as relevant as 2): since most players consider a draw with black to be a success, taking away the disadvantage of black by giving a time bonus should encourage both players to play for a win, which in turn, because humans make mistakes, would lead to fewer draws (as well, of course, as more wins for black).

So much for the theories. Perhaps the SEC mentality is too deeply engrained and experiments like this one need more time. On the other hand, giving Anand a 20-minute time advantage hardly seems fair!

Nothing much new for this crowd, but it's something to see Greg Shahade's photo on the homepage of the NY Times. Today there's an article on how databases have changed the game. There are comments by various NY players like Bonin, Shahade, and Ehlvest, as well as by the volks at ChessBase. One para reminded me of various conversations I had with players at the US Championship in San Diego.

In San Diego it came out that many players, particularly the more net-savvy youngsters, had gone beyond the MegaBase and TWIC and had prepared by looking at their opponents' blitz games from the ICC. (Playchess.com doesn't archive games online.) Many players try out openings in blitz games they used to think were anonymous. Many GMs maintain anonymous accounts, but the real names tend to leak out, especially in the community. Soon there might be a black-market in secret identities. I would expect there to be a "do not archive games online" account option to be added.

It was almost six years ago when I, then writing at TWIC, came up with an idea to quantify and castigate "fightless" GM draws in Mig on Chess #116. Showing my usual flair for names that guarantee no one will take my ideas seriously, I called it "the Chicken Factor." It is a formula that analyzes a gamescore and produces a score for each player that says whether or not it was a fighting draw or a pathetic excuse for a game. (I made minor refinements published in MoC #118, see below with example.) ChessWise put my Excel Chicken Factor calculator online and it's still up.

The basic idea is to subtract the number of moves from total value of each player's pieces. I was surprised to find that the formula actually worked. It misread short, sharp repetition draws, but those are very rare and in the great scheme of things (a player's career or an entire tournament) would be statistically irrelevant. I had added a bunch of optional subjective factors, although I now think they are superfluous for the same reason. The original formula had modifiers based on color and the ratings of the players, so you got a bonus if you drew with black against a higher-rated player, etc. But these are cop-outs that go against the Chicken Factor ethos of promoting fighting chess regardless of color and rating points. No excuses!

I'm bringing this up because my vision for the CF may soon be realized. The laboriousness of calculating each game made it more of a joke than a tool. I said then that it would be truly powerful to have a PGN reader/calculator or to build it into database formats. Now that may actually be happening, so post your thoughts and suggestions.

The CF isn't an attack on chess professionals; I'm very much hoping to help them. Consider it an intervention to break the addiction to short draws. That addiction is harmful to the game, in this case meaning fan interest and sponsorship. I'm still in favor of move minimums, but the CF doesn't force anyone to do anything; it is an objective statistic. (Which is partly why I came up with it. Several GMs complained that I was too harsh in criticizing them for short draws. So the formula would do it for me.) You can even take it positively, as a method for rewarding those who fight hard in every game.

While recapping US Champ Hikaru Nakamura's recent triumphs I left out a tournament of which he was most proud. (Hey, did I mention he's now contributing to the ChessNinja Black Belt newsletter?) In October Nakamura scored 5.5/6 at the Western States Open in Reno to finish a full point ahead of a field that included over a dozen US Championship players. In three consecutive rounds he beat veteran GMs Wojtkiewicz, Kudrin, and Yermolinsky in what were described to me by Nakamura's step-father Sunil Weermantry as long grinds.

I say "described" because the games themselves are not readily available! In this era of live online broadcasts and daily event coverage, the event organizer wants seven dollars to send you the bulletins with 110 games from the open section! While it's his right to do as he wishes with his bulletins (and they may contain added value such as analysis), it seems obvious he would profit much more from the publicity gained by releasing the games widely so places like ChessBase.com with their hundreds of thousands of readers could report on the event. I can't imagine he sells more than a handful of the bulletins, especially once the event is over. I emailed the organizer and didn't get the games or a reply. Bizarre.

While the organizer owns the scoresheets, the gamescores themselves aren't copyrightable property. So if I went around to the players to collect as many scores as I could I could post them (or even sell them) myself. In 1998 FIDE tried to charge to download the Olympiad games. They gave up after a few rounds. There is never a shortage of people willing to repeat dumb ideas.

I just received a curiously worded tournament press release from MonRoi, an entity of which I was previously unaware. The 10-player round robin with six GMs starts on January 15 in Montreal. Perhaps more interesting than the field is the MonRoi broadcast system that will be used for the first time in an international event. Each player gets a palm PC-looking device to record the moves instead of using a paper scoresheet. This "ECM" transmits the moves over a wireless network to a central PC. In turn the games can be broadcast online.

Problems are inevitable as with any new system, but I guess this is a step in the right direction. It still seems strange to have the players recording the moves at all when electronic boards are increasingly prevalent. Wireless boards are in the works. One advantage of the MonRoi concept is that each player keeps his little computer, which stores many games. The potential for abuse is not trivial, although not as great as the potential for errors.

Since it's moving into other posts, here's a place to talk about Teimour Radjabov's shot about how Garry Kasparov "uses his name, his influence in the chess world to persuade tournament organizers not to invite me to play."

Really I think discussing this sort of silliness gives it attention it doesn't deserve. What tournaments has he been kept out of? Why would organizers listen to Kasparov about Radjabov playing, especially since it's hard to find any events Kasparov played in where this would even be relevant. You'd think the kid would be happy with his +1 =3 score against Kasparov. But this has little to do with Kasparov.

Radjabov is probably talking about Linares, where he played in 2003 and 2004 and wasn't invited this year. His performances were okay, but the bottom line is that he was invited as a youthful novelty to an event that usually only includes members of the top ten, plus local player Paco Vallejo now that he's top 30 (now 20). Now that Radjabov is no longer the youngest and fairest (see Karjakin and Carlsen), it's all about rating and there are 35 players ahead of Radjabov on the list. (Radjabov scored -3 total in his two Linares appearances.)

That's not to say that Kasparov didn't stop treating him like a kid brother after he lost a bitter game to him in Linares 2003. No more ice-cream and pats on the head after you show you are a big boy. Kasparov can be spiteful and hates having a minus score against anybody. But Radjabov is likely frustrated by his effortless rise slowing, as it always does for top juniors. His rating went up a dozen points in 2004. Even Leko and Ponomariov had their plateaus, although Karjakin and Carlsen's current vertical charts gives pause.

With a brief moment of net time before heading back to New York (whence daily posts will resume), how about we get the Corus Wijk aan Zee hubbub bubbling? It starts Saturday, Jan. 15. The official site has much useful information in English thanks to the excellent Aviv Friedman. ChessBase.com will have daily reports.

Group A: Anand, Topalov, Kramnik, Leko, Morozevich, Adams, Svidler, Polgar, Grischuk, Ponomariov, Sokolov, van Wely, Short, Bruzon.

Group B: Nikolic, Mamedyarov, Onischuk, Nielsen, Karjakin, Cheparinov, Carlsen, Nijboer, Stellwagen, Ernst, Ramirez, Stefanova, Kosteniuk, Smeets. So many youngsters that anything can happen here.

Anand is the big favorite. He has won two Corus tournaments in a row and has played the best chess in the world for the past two years. If he wins he will tie Kasparov's record for three Wijk aan Zee wins in a row. Polgar finished second last time she played there (two years ago) and is an x-factor after a year away from the board.

Leko and Adams tied for second behind Anand in 2004. Kramnik had a miserable time with his opening experiments and had an even score. It would be nice to see him come out hard to ratify the title he barely kept against Leko, but Big Vlad doesn't play for anyone but himself, so we'll see. If he tries to keep up with Anand we could have a totally different event than if he plays for his +2.

Chess fans around the world are still waiting for Morozevich to have a big supertournament showing. Grischuk, Svidler, Topalov, and Ponomariov are all capable of winning this event outright if Anand falls into the sea. Another great Corus tournament, let the handicapping begin!

Happy New Year to one and all.

I've been blessedly far from the computer, at least my own computer. I'm in California doing the family rounds and spent New Year's at my dad's place in the mountains (see above) (Oak Run, to be precise). Of course I got to spend some of my time fixing my stepmother's computer (a Pentium II!), but most of the time was spend eating and playing around in the sudden snow. (Time was also made for my girlfriend and I to trounce my father, my sister, and her husband at the most excellent party game "Cranium". My charade of the expression "ants in the pants" will go into family history along with my father's attempt to explain "picnic" in clay by making a line of tiny ants moving toward a basket.)

I'll be back in NY soon enough. Meanwhile, how about those New Year's chess resolutions, both personal and global? Please share. I always say I'm going to make time to play tournaments again. I always hope for unification. I resolve to try and stamp out GM draws wherever they are found.