chess

I've gotten a bit behind in my chess match coverage. Time to remedy that! Last we saw Anand had blundered away an easily drawn endgame in Game Eight. This allowed Topalov to tie the match. Undeterred, Anand came out swinging in Game Nine. Topalov decided he had had enough of Anand's Catalan, and played the Nimzo-Indian Defense instead. Everything proceeded along normal lines until Topalov allowed an endgame with his queen pitted against Anand's two rooks. If you remember your basic chess arithmetic, rooks are worth five points each, while the queen is nine points. So two rooks count as…
You didn't think I'd forgotten about the big chess match, did you? Topalov won game eight to tie the match with four games to go. His win had more to do with Anand's carelessness than it did with his own cleverness, but hey, a win is a win. The momentum has completely shifted to Topalov now. It will be interesting to see if Anand can get it together down the home stretch. The game was another Slav. Once again Anand was the first to vary, but he got a bit careless in the queenless middlegame.Position after 22. ... f5-f4 Anand has just moved his f-pawn one square forward, attacking the…
The big chess match continues apace. In Game Five the players plowed down the same line of the Slav Defense they explored in Game Three. No doubt Topalov had an improvement in mind, but Anand varied first. Topalov pressed, but in the end he was the one who was happy to call it a draw. Game Six was another Catalan. Anand's two knights looked to be dominating Topalov's two bishops, but in the end he could not break through. Another draw. But the real excitement came with today's Game Seven. Anand got his second white in a row. The schedule for the match calls for a rest day after every…
Two more games down in the big chess match. Game Three saw the first draw of the match. Topalov once more opened with his queen pawn, but Anand wisely avoided the Grunfeld this time. Instead he played the super-solid Slav Defense, and a fairly conservative variation at that. Topalov got the requisite small advantage out of the opening, but he was never close to breaking through Anand's solid defense. The real action came in game four. Anand, playing white, once more went with the Catalan Opening, which worked so well for him in Game Two. Twenty-One moves later he reached this position:…
Two games down in the big chess match and it is shaping up to be a barn burner. The defending champion is Viswanathan Anand of India, though you would never have guessed it from the faceplant he did in Game One. His opponent is Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria. By my reckoning this is the first World Chess Championship in which neither player is from the former Soviet Union since Lasker-Capablanca in 1920. Here is the key position from Game One: Position After 23. ... Kg8-f7Topalov is known as a very tactical player who loves materially unbalanced positions. Given that, it was probably…
Are you as excited as I am?
I am afraid I have been so lax in keeping up with my internet reading that I only just found out that Vassily Smyslov has died. Smyslov was the World Chess Champion from 1957-1958. His rivalry with Mikhail Botvinnik throughout the 1950's would not be matched until the epic Karpov-Kasparov matches of the 80's and early 90's. Smyslov played three matches with Botvinnik. The first ended in a 12-12 tie and featured a string of eight consecutive decisive games, Smyslov winning four and Botvinnik winning the other four. The tied match meant Botvinnik kept the title. Smyslov then won the…
Above: Kasparov after his first meeting with Deep Blue, in 1997, when he crushed DP. Later it wouldn't go so well. In a splendid article in the NY Review of books, former world chess champion Gary Kasparov ponders the limitations of technology as a means of playing chess truly well. When I hit this paragraph late in the article, it struck me that you could write much the same thing about pharma. From The Chess Master and the Computer - The New York Review of Books: Like so much else in our technology-rich and innovation-poor modern world, chess computing has fallen prey to incrementalism…
In yesterday's post I mentioned a chess combination that arose during a tournament game I played a while back. For the benefit of my chess-playing readers I thought I would conclude the week by showing it to you. This was played at the World Open a number of years ago. I was black. I had blundered out of the opening and had been defending grimly for some time. My opponent, happily, had been playing very sloppily, and missed several clear wins. It is not immediately clear how white should make progress in the endgame below, but you kind of get the feeling that his material advantage…
Good news for chess fans: The newspaper Marca (journalist Jesus J. Boyero) broke the news that Kasparov and Karpov will play a 12 game (4 Rapid and 8 blitz) match in Valencia 21st-24th September 2009. The match is on the 25th Anniversary of the start of their infamous first aborted match in Moscow in 1984-5, this was followed by an epic series of close World title matches which ended in Lyon 1990. Score! I'm so there. Well, not literally there in Spain, but at least at my computer following the games. In other Kasparov news, here's Kasparov's statement durin ghis recent meeting with…
Via BoingBoing, BBG and Make, Paul Fryer makes some pretty cool chess sets. Links to the pics on the Gallery site are here, here, here, here.
We chess players have had to put up with taunts from our Go playing counterparts for quite some time. First there was the jibe that Go is so much easier to learn than chess. Then the dubious charge that Go is actually more complex than chess. Some have argued that the superiority of Go over chess represents he difference between Eastern and Western values. (In Go you start with an empty board and gradually build up structures that control territory. Chess is just a bloodbath where rival armies try to slaughter the other guy's leader.) And then there was the undeniable fact that chess-…
After my last class tomorrow I will hop into the Jasonmobile, spend some quality time on I-81 and the Pennsy Turnpike, say hello to the 'rents in central New Jersey, and then wander up to Parsippany for the annual chess extravaganza known as the U.S. Amateur Team East. I first played in this event back in 1986 and have only missed a handful of them since then. Alas, this will be my first over the board chess tournament since this tournament last year, so I fear I'm pretty rusty. Whatever. This is hands down the most enjoyable tournament of the year. With something like 1500 players, small…
From the San Jose Mercury News: An evening that started with two friends playing chess and drinking beers ended with one man stabbed to death and another booked on murder charges Tuesday, Alameda police said. Kelly Scott Kjersem, a 40-year-old Alameda man, arrived earlier in the evening at 1220 Park Avenue with a 12-pack of beer, police Lt. Bill Scott said. Kjersem was visiting the home of his friend, Joseph W. Groom, 62, to drink and play chess. The two men played and drank for some time, and later a female friend of Groom's arrived and began cooking dinner for the two men. While she was in…
While attempts to explain the disproportionate number of women in math and science have resulted in the conclusion that women are innately inferior to men in these areas, the methodology has often—if not always—been flawed. By analyzing chess players to explain the lack of female grandmasters, one study found the lack is mostly attributable to nonparticipation, not skill. "Increase female representation in this game and you would probably see many more prodigies rising to the fore," wrote ScienceBlogger Ed Yong from Not Exactly Rocket Science.
Three years ago, Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard University, claimed that genetic differences between the sexes led to a "different availability of aptitude at the high end". His widely derided led to his dismissal, but is views are by no means uncommon. In the same year, Paul Irwing and Richard Lynn conducted a review of existing studies on sex differences in intelligence and concluded: "Different proportions of men and women with high IQs... may go some way to explaining the greater numbers of men achieving distinctions of various kinds for which a high IQ is required, such…
This is an exciting time for chessplayers. First the big Anand-Kramnik match, which certianly exceeded expectations. Possibly a Kamsky-Topalov match later this month. And now the big olympiad in Dresden, Germany. The U.S. is represented by a strong team consisting of Onischuk, Shulman, Nakamura, Kamsky, and Akobian. A serious medal threat. And, indeed, today we won our first round match against Iceland. Ramesh Balasubramanian (who beat me in the first round of the World Open two years ago. Grrrrr) has some interesting thoughts on the subject. Also check out Mig Greengard here.
The big chess match is over. Anand is the victor. He won three games to Kramnik's one, with seven draws. The final game saw Anand, playing white, opening with his e-pawn. This is Anand's usual choice, but he had avoided it in this match. This is likely owing to the success Kramnik has had in making easy draws with the Petroff Defense. Given the match situation, however, Anand would have been happy with an easy draw. Since the Petroff is not what you play when you need a win with black, Kramnik tried the Sicilian instead. The always exciting Najdorf variation appeared, though it quickly…
Vladimir Kramnik has announced his intention to fight to the end of the big chess match, and games nine and ten have certainly been his best efforts yet. When last we checked in (pun intended), Kramnik was down three points with four games to go in the big chess match. Playing black in Sunday's Game Nine, Kramnik played the Semi-Slav with black. And why not? It's been working for Anand. The first critical moment came a mere five moves in: Position After 5. ... h7-h6Black's last move introduced the solid Moscow Variation. Even needing a win with black it was probably asking too much that…
Anand won game six of the big chess match. He has now won three out of the six games played (the other three ended in draws.) Kramnik will have to repeat that feat just to tie the match. Not too likely, but who knows? Playing white, Anand once again opened with the d-pawn, and as in game two the Nimzo-Indian Defense appeared. But instead of the sharp line with 4. f3, Anand understandably went for the more conservative 4. Qc2. Once again Anand got in the first novelty:V. Anand - V. KramnikWorld Championship 2008Position After 8. ... 0-0 The usual move here is the natural 9.e3, with the…