Chess

Jonathan Hawkins has emerged as the winner of this year’s British Championship, which finished last week at the University of Warwick in Coventry. Several players were in contention for the laurels as they entered the final round, but Hawkins’s rivals could only draw, and his win clinched the title. In the past there was a clearly defined cursus honorum for aspiring players. Win the national championship, and the odds were that you would be selected for the World Championship zonal tournament. If you qualified from that stage to the interzonal then the path was clear, if you were successful, to proceed to the Candidates tournament for the world title. Nowadays, with variegated World Chess Federation qualifying routes, the climb to the top has become more opaque.

David Howell is on a roll. At the halfway stage of the British Championship he looks set to retain his title, and he has shot to no. 2 in the British rankings, behind Michael Adams. His recent successes include a share of first prize in the Dubai Open and a stunning outright first in the tournament at Leiden, with the colossal score of 8½/9. Howell’s games are not only producing effective results but are beginning to display those signs of luminosity which characterise the creative efforts of the great masters. This week’s game is a case in point.

Alexander Petroff (1794-1867) is often remembered as the first great Russian chess master. He became the strongest player in Russia at the age of 15 and produced the first chess book in Russian. His main legacy, however, is the Petroff Defence (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6), an opening which has been seen consistently at the highest level ever since he invented it. A new book, The Petroff Move by Move (Everyman Chess) by Cyrus Lakdawala, explores this opening in great detail. Due to the potentially symmetrical nature of the positions that can arise, the Petroff has an undeserved reputation as an unadventurous opening. The following dramatic encounter shows that this is far from the truth.

Sadly, Michael Adams, for many years Britain’s leading grandmaster, will not be playing in the British Championship, which starts next week. Michael is often referred to as ‘Spidey’ because of the way he spins a web to ensnare his opponents. The most spidery player ever was Anatoly Karpov, world champion from 1975, when he beat Bobby Fischer by default, to 1985, when the young genius Garry Kasparov took over. A new book by international master Sam Collins, in the well-known Everyman Move by Move teaching format, brings out these refined qualities in Karpov’s play and shows how he was able to reduce even the most formidable opposition to utter helplessness. Notes to the following game are based on those in the book.

Fabiano Caruana notched the result of his life at the Sinquefield Trophy in St Louis last year. Since then he has done nothing in particular and not done it very well, to adapt W.S. Gilbert’s lordly formula from Iolanthe. Now Caruana has reasserted himself at the elite tournament in Dortmund, where final scores (out of 7) were as follows: Caruana 5½, So and Nisipeanu 4, Kramnik 3½, Nepomniachtchi and Naiditsch 3, Hou Yifan and Meier 2½.   As can be seen, Caruana outclassed the field by a substantial margin, in spite of losing one game to Wesley So.   Nisipeanu-Caruana, Dortmund 2015 (see diagram 1) Black’s plan of advancing the a-pawn is obvious. However, the brilliant tactic that makes it work is not. 27 ... a5 28 Nd4 axb4 29 Nxc6 b3!!

I have a particular affection for Chinese involvement in mind sports. In 1981 I was invited as the first western grandmaster to compete in an international chess tournament in China, held in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. For this, I was awarded the gold medal of the Chinese Olympic Association. Since then, I have organised three world memory championships in China, with a fourth set for Chengdu in November.   The Chinese have their own form of chess, Xiang Qi, which differs from western chess in various ways: a nine-by-nine board, play on intersections rather than squares, a piece which fires through other pieces and a king which is trapped in its own castle throughout the entire game.

Last week, world champion Magnus Carlsen suffered a devastating defeat in the first round of the Stavanger super tournament when he lost on time to Topalov, in what had been a winning position for the champion. This contradictory outcome lent wings to the Bulgarian grandmaster, who then stormed to one of his greatest tournament triumphs.   The normally irrepressible Carlsen, clearly unnerved by this unfortunate accident, went on to lose a further three games from the remaining eight, with just two wins to his credit.   Inevitably this once again prompts questions about Carlsen’s actual strength.

In serious competitive chess the play is regulated by time limits for completion of the moves. In the mid-19th century, players could take as long as they wished over their moves. This proved unsatisfactory and it was recognised that time needed to be rationed and the failure to meet time control would result in the loss of the game. There have been freak accidents with time restrictions. In the first round of Hastings 1895, the German grandmaster Dr Siegbert Tarrasch lost on time with one move to go against Amos Burn. The reason for Tarrasch’s time forfeit was that he had written his own name in the space for his first move. His opponent tried to make him aware of the blunder, but the dogmatic German refused to take heed until his clock flag had fallen.

A new book, Opening Repertoire: The Nimzo-Indian and Bogo-Indian by Christof Seilecki (Everyman Chess), focuses on the ever popular Nimzo-Indian and Bogo-Indian Defences. The former arises after 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Bb4 while the latter commences 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 Bb4+. The possibilities for transposition are legion.   The Nimzo-Indian is named after the subtle chessboard strategist and author of My System Aron Nimzowitsch, victor of the great international tournaments at Dresden 1926, London 1927 and Carlsbad 1929. Its close relative is named after Efim Bogolyubov who won the equally impressive tournaments at Moscow 1925 and Bad Kissingen 1928 and also challenged, unsuccessfully, for the World Championship in 1929 and 1934.

This week I conclude my coverage of the Fidé (World Chess Federation) Grand Prix which finished last month in Khanty-Mansiysk. Three shared first place: Dmitri Jakovenko, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. Although Jakovenko emerged in pole position on tie-break, it was Caruana and Nakamura who qualified for next year’s Candidates tournament to determine a challenger to world champion Magnus Carlsen by virtue of their superior scores in the overall series.   Here are some of the decisive moments from this important event.   Caruana-Tomashevsky: Khanty-Mansiysk 2015 (see diagram 1)   White’s king is safer than Black’s and he has powerful central play. Caruana quickly converted these advantages. 31 e6 Re7 32 Bh4 Ree8 If 32 ...

Boris Gulko, celebrated both as a grandmaster and a former Soviet dissident, has recently completed his great trilogy of instructional volumes. They make exclusive use of the instructional value of Gulko’s own victories, which include probably more victories against Kasparov, when compared to losses, than any other major player. Lessons with a Grandmaster, Volume 3 (Everyman Chess) is the third in the series. Notes to the following game are based on those by Gulko.   Gulko-Kasparov: Linares 1990; King’s Indian Defence   1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 f3 0-0 6 Be3 c6 7 Bd3 e5 8 d5 b5 9 cxb5 cxd5 10 exd5 e4 11 Nxe4 Nxd5 12 Bg5 Qb6 12 ... Qa5+ was seen in Timman-Kasparov, Reykjavik 1988.

There are some odd opening moves in chess, such as 1 a3 and 1 g4. The former was used by Adolf Anderssen to win a game against Paul Morphy in their 1858 match, while the latter has been developed into an entire system by the English international master Michael Basman. Perhaps the weirdest of all is 1 h4, the topic of a new book, Shuffleduck, by Ken Norbury. It is conceivable that it might be possible to weld 1 h4 into a kind of system, as Basman has done with 1 g4. However, this book points out how an early h4 can form part of a strategic design, in particular when Black has fianchettoed his king’s bishop. This week I annotate the earliest example I can find of this strategy.

The former world champion Vladimir Kramnik recently espoused an opening system which I elaborated in a tournament in Germany in 1975. Remarkably, in the first two rounds of the Mannheim competition, both of my opponents defended identically, and both were eventually ground down in simplified positions. Kramnik used the same method to defeat grandmaster Peter Svidler, the seven-times Russian champion, in the recently concluded Russian Team Championship. A position from Kramnik’s victory forms the topic of this week’s puzzle. Keene-Reichenbach: Mannheim 1975; Reti Opening 1 Nf3 d5 2 b3 Nf6 3 Bb2 g6 4 g3 The double fianchetto is the hallmark of this variation. 4 ...

During the World Championship qualifier of 1959, grandmaster Pal Benko wore dark glasses to counter the hypnotic gaze of his dangerous opponent, world champion-to-be Mikhail Tal. This precaution did him no good (see this week’s puzzle).   This is not the only instance when hypnosis has been suspected in chess. In the 1978 world championship, Viktor Korchnoi accused Anatoly Karpov’s assistant, Dr Vladimir Zukhar, of disrupting his thought processes by attacking him telepathically.   Korchnoi has also said he thinks Magnus Carlsen, the reigning world champion, mesmerises his opponents into making blunders.

This week I continue with my analysis of Nigel Short’s recent animadversions upon the differences between the male and female brain and his opinion that women cannot match up to men across the chessboard. The great German poet Goethe once described chess as ‘a touchstone of the brain’; he wrote this, in fact, in the persona of a female character, Adelheid, in his play Götz von Berlichingen.   The brainiest person I know is a female triple PhD from Dubai, Dr Manahel Thabet, who is capable of expressing herself in equations way beyond my comprehension. The predominance of male chess players is, in my opinion, not the result of differing brainpower, biologically divergent ‘hardwiring’, as Nigel put it, but of certain predominant cultural conditions.

British chess grandmaster Nigel Short has form when it comes to provocative statements. When competing in a tournament in France as a junior player, some years ago, he was asked the question by an interviewer: ‘What do you hate most in life?’ His answer — ‘The French’ — failed to endear him to the organisers. At a later appearance in a French tournament, an entente cordiale was struck, and Nigel is once again a welcome guest across the Channel. Nigel’s latest foray into contentious self-expression came with his widely reported intervention into the age-old debate about the differences between the male and female brain.

Hikaru Nakamura has won the US Championship in convincing style with 8/11, ahead of Ray Robson and Wesley So. Things might have turned out differently had So not been disqualified after just six moves of his game against Akobian. These moves were: 1 d4 e6 2 c4 d5 3 Nc3 c5 4 cxd5 exd5 5 Nf3 Nc6 6 dxc5. Apparently, Akobian complained to the arbiters that Wesley So, the most promising grandmaster ever to emerge from the Philippines and currently ranked no. 8 in the world, had been scribbling notes to himself during the opening phase of the game. Since the opening is well known these notes could have had nothing to do with the position. But it is illegal to write notes during the game and So had been warned about this during an earlier encounter.

The Hamilton Russell trophy for London clubs has been dominated in the past by the RAC. This year, though, they were knocked for six in the final decisive match by the MCC. The full scores (out of a possible 14) were as follows: 1st Marylebone Cricket Club, 14; Joint 2nd Oxford & Cambridge Club and Royal Automobile Club, 11; 4th Athenaeum Club, 7; Joint 5th Hurlingham Club and Oriental & East India Clubs, 4; 7th Chelsea Arts Club, 3; 8th Reform Club, 2. The crucial game which helped the MCC to take the cup was the following clash between an international master and a former Spectator editor. Dominic Lawson has supplied the following notes himself.

I learn from The Problemist, the organ of the British Chess Problem Society, that the polymath Dr Jacob Bronowski also composed chess problems. According to the article I read, Bronowski was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1908, grew up in Germany and then became an undergraduate at Jesus College, Cambridge. He was a mathematician, biologist, historian of science, theatrical author, poet and inventor, and of course is most celebrated as the author and presenter of the 1973 BBC TV series The Ascent of Man. The puzzle in Diagram 1 composed by Bronowski. This puzzle is a reflex mate which is a variant of the self-mate theme. In a self-mate White must force Black to checkmate him. The same applies in a reflex mate, with the extra rule that if either side can give checkmate, then they must.

In the James Bond film From Russia with Love there is an evil mastermind named Kronsteen. The character is in some ways based on the Russian chess genius David Bronstein, and the chess game ‘from the Venice International Tournament’ that forms the backdrop to the opening sequence is taken from a game between Bronstein and Boris Spassky. A new book by Steve Giddins, Bronstein Move by Move (Everyman Chess), gives a superb insight into the creative processes of the chessboard colossus through a series of deeply annotated games. This week’s game and notes are based on those in this highly rewarding and entertaining book.