OPEN
CHESS DIARY 101-120
10 March - 30 May 2001
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120. 30 May: Mutual Discovered Perpetual
In item 96 of this diary, I showed a game where a series of 6 mutual
consecutive checks could have happened. Using the new ChessBase 8
option of looking for checking moves, I discovered this would have been a
record. On my records page, there
were already two games with a series of 5 - the game in the diagram on the
left should be added.
Sahovic - Skembris, Vrnjacka Banja 1989
40...b3+ 41.Rxb3+ cxb3+ 42.Qxb3+ Qxb3+ 43.cxb3 Kb7 and Black won
easily.
The question often arises what the longest possible series would be. For
that, I refer to the article Check!,
elsewhere on my site.
With certain Fairy pieces, longer series can be
constructed, and even a mutual perpetual discovered check is possible.
T.R. Dawson, the inventor of the Nightrider (and much else in Fairy
Chess), showed such a position in 1938, but the diagram on the left is a
simpler example by Joost de Heer, 2001.
The pieces on b1 and e1 are again Nightriders;
line-knights. The Nb1 covers a3, d2, f3, h4 and c3 and would also cover
d5, if it were not blocked by the Kc3. The Ne1 likewise covers 9 squares.
White is in check. There could follow: 1.Kd3+ Kc5+ 2.Kc3+ Kd5+ 3.Kd3+
Kc5+ etc.
PS 24 October 2004: Michael McDowell informs me that this position was anticipated (with all pieces shifted one square to the right) by A.J.Roycroft (after T.R. Dawson) in The Problemist, July 1976.
119. 24 May: Che and the Catalan
In his preface to Korchnoi's new book (My Best Games, Vol. 1),
Sosonko tells the following story.
1963, tournament in Havana. Some participants, including Tal and
Korchnoi, give simuls. Among Korchnoi's opponents there
is Che Guevara. An official approaches Korchnoi, telling him: "Che Guevara
loves chess passionately, but he is a rather weak player. He would be extremely
happy to draw his game against you." Korchnoi nods understandingly. Later
in the hotel, Tal asks him how it went. "I won them all." - "Against Che
Guevara, too?" - "Yes, he doesn't have the faintest idea what to do against the
Catalan."
118. 22 May: Elementary, my dear Alexes
In the second round of the Astana tournament, there was a remarkable case of
double chess blindness.
In the position on the left, from Shirov - Morozevich, White played
55.Kb2? (Kc2!) and now 55...Kb4??
55...Rxh5 was perfectly possible: 56.Ra5+ Kb4 57.Rxh5 stalemate.
Now, White won after 56.Rb6+ Kc5 57.Rxh6 Kb4 58.Kc2 Rc3+ 59.Kd2 Rh3 60.Rh8
Kc5 61.Kc2 Kb5 62.Kd2 Kc6 63.h6 Kb7 64.b4 Ka7 65.Ke2 Rh4 66.Kf3 Rxb4 67.Rg8
Rh4 68.Rg6 Kb7 69.Kg3 Rh1 70.Kf4 Kc7 71.Kf5 Kd7 72.Kf6 Ke8 73.Kg7 and Black
resigned.
Even stranger is that this elementary stalemate trap had already occurred
in top level chess. In the position on the left, from Bernstein -
Smyslov, Groningen 1946, Smyslov played 59...b2?? There followed:
60.Rxb2 Kg4 (60...Rh2+ 61.Kf3 Rxb2 stalemate) 61.Kf1 draw.
The tournament books adds that a few days before, Bernstein had shown
Smyslov a similar stalemating manoeuver.
117. 21 May: Chess, like banana peels, like flower pots falling from windows, has the power to make men laugh
 |
This position, with Black to move, arose in the game
Caoili (2097) - Epishin (2667), Malaga Open 2000. The grandmaster had
not achieved a great deal against his humble opponent, when he finally saw
his chance to win a pawn: 37...Qxd4 Because after 38.Qxd4, there
follows the family check Ne2+ However, 38.Nf5+, and Black resigned.
|
 |
White to move, Ojanen - Ridala, Helsinki 1959
I found this in a column by Gert Ligterink. Everybody knows how to win this: 1.Rh8, because after 1...Rxa7, there follows 2.Rh7+ and Rxa7. However: 1...Rh2+ and White resigned. Every time I come across this diagram, it's the same with me as it was with Ligterink: I can't help laughing. |
116. 14 May: The bridge and the square
Some time ago, to the disbelief of some readers, I mentioned that in
Amsterdam, you can cross the Hein Donner bridge to reach the
Max Euwe square.
(See item 84 in this Diary.) It's something these two, who were for a long
time Holland's only two grandmasters, could not have imagined when they
first met in a family hotel in a provincial town in the East of the
Netherlands, in 1943.
In 1977, Donner wrote in
Schaakbulletin: "Just having turned sixteen, I had been sent to the
countryside to feed up a little. There was this girl, too.
At our first acquaintance, she lifted her skirt and asked if she
had beautiful legs. A future great artist would have reacted differently
- Goethe, Wagner, Mulisch (a Dutch writer and a friend of Donner's - TK),
but I was paralysed with fright. I did in fact become a chess player,
just having mastered the art at that point. That weekend, she turned
out to be God's daughter, as well. In unfathomable goodness he granted me a
game. A Slav opening, he won the endgame."
Being a true chess player, Donner was probably more
excited about the fact that the girl's father was the former World Chess
Champion Max Euwe, and the dream of perhaps being able to play Him a game,
than about her legs. In those years, it was unimaginable for a schoolboy to
challenge a grown-up, but when Euwe arrived, the prominence of Donner's
father (a former Minister of Justice and a member of the High Court)
assured that the families would have tea together, and when the ever
obliging Euwe was told of the boy's chess love, he suggested
playing a game after dinner.
Donner - Euwe, Winterswijk 1943
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.Ne5 e6 7.f3 Bb4
8.Bg5 c5 9.dxc5 Qxd1+ 10.Rxd1 Nd5 11.e4 f6 12.exd5 exd5 13.Rxd5 fxg5
(see diagram)
14.Bxc4 Black's opening has gone wrong; with 14.Nxc4 White
would have obtained good chances. Now he was gradually put on the
defensive.
14...Be6 15.Rd1 Bxc4 16.Nxc4 O-O 17.O-O Bxc5+ 18.Kh1 Nc6 19.Ne4 Be7
20.Rd7 Rab8 21.Na5 Nxa5 22.Rxe7 g4 23.Rd1 Rbd8 24.Rdd7 Rxd7 25.Rxd7 Rc8
26.Kg1 gxf3 27.gxf3 Rc1+ 28.Kg2 Rc2+ 29.Rd2 Rxd2+ 30.Nxd2 Kf7 31.Kf2 Ke6
32.Ke3 Kd5 33.Kd3 Nc6 34.b3 Nd4 35.h4 Nf5 36.h5 Ng3 37.h6 gxh6 38.f4 h5
39.Ke3 Nf5+ 40.Kf3 Kd4 and White resigned. The game, played without a
clock, had lasted an hour.
A very good game for a boy who had just been playing
for two years, and Euwe praised his talent. In a novel about two
chessplayers, this would be a decisive moment in the lives of both: the
schoolboy suddenly realising
his calling in life, the great man feeling guilty about the boy's social
downfall, because Hein Donner had been cut out for something different
than the bohemian and, in those years, destitute life of a professional
chessplayer. (In the fifties, Donner was the only member on the
Dutch teams who wasn't paid. The others, holding jobs, were compensated
for their loss of income - he had nothing to be compensated for.)
Reality did somehow resemble this scenario.
 |
| 1954: Euwe congratulates Donner on dethroning him as champion of the Netherlands. |
Donner, who was at his best as a writer when he insulted, and who did that to everyone and everything in the Dutch chess world, always spared Euwe. He addressed him as Grandmaître, and in writing called him: "Thou great and good one." He never won a game against him. Almost all other prominent players of his generation managed to win a game against Euwe, but Donner never did. His last chance came in 1977, when God was 76, and the schoolboy 50.
Donner - Euwe, Amsterdam 1977
1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 a6 4.e3 Nf6 5.Bxc4 e6 6.O-O c5 7.a4 Nc6
8.Qe2 Be7 9.dxc5 Bxc5 10.e4 e5
(see diagram) 11.h3 "11.Bxf7+ would of course have won
immediately," Donner
wrote. It isn't that of course - there follows Kxf7 12.Qc4+ Ke8
13.Qxc5 Nxe4 and Black is OK. Instead, 11.Ng5! wins a pawn: Be6 (0-0
12.Nxf7 etc.) 12.Bxe6 fxe6 13.Nxe6 Donner: "He did all he could to oblige
me, but apparently, I just couldn't do it anymore." 11...O-O 12.Nc3 Nd4
13.Nxd4 exd4 14.Nd5 Nxd5 15.Nxd5 Be6 16.Bxe6 fxe6 17.Qd3 Ba7 18.Bd2 Rc8
19.Rfc1 Qd7 20.b3 h6 21.Rxc8 Rxc8 22.Rc1 Rxc1+ 23.Bxc1 b5 24.axb5 axb5
25.Bd2 e5 draw. "Things should be left at that," Donner wrote. Euwe
died in 1981, Donner in 1988.
115. 11 May: Shirov doesn't want to play Bh3 anymore
In New in Chess, I read that this year's Linares plaque featured
Shirov's famous move 47...Bh3 against Topalov from the tournament of 1998.
I'd like to add to that honor by showing a historical webcam shot of
Topalov, pondering the effects of that move - courtesy John Fernandez. And
by naming a remark of Shirov's "Chess Quote of the Year":
"The fact that the 7 hours control allows to play a great deep game is no longer of great importance for mass-media."
(Alexei Shirov, in an open letter to FIDE.)
114. 1 May: Computers can't play chess (ctd.)
In
Cadaquès, Spain, there is a match going on between Deep Fritz and
Deep Junior for the right to play Kramnik. In the fourth game of this
match, Deep Junior - Deep Fritz, there was a strange case of
chess blindness. In the diagrammed position, there followed:
70.Rc6+! White wants to get rid of his Rook, so he can read his
tablebases, instead of think. 70...Kb5! Of course, Black doesn't
want to let him; 'tablebase' is just as bad as 'mate'. 71.Rc5+??
Incredible - he misses a tablebase in two with
71.Rb3+ 71...Kb4! Setting a cunning trap. 72.Rb5+! Because
after 72.Rb3+ Kxc5! there is no tablebase, hence: draw. 72...Kc4
73.Rd4+ Kc3 74.Rc5+ Kxd4? For some
strange reason, Black suddenly acknowledges he's in a tablebasing net. He
could have prolonged the struggle with Kb3. Now, there followed 75.Rf5 tablebase.
Compare item 61 in this diary.
It's like buying a can of beer, then taking the
plane to Zimbabwe because you have a friend there who knows how to open
them.
113. 29 April: A tear in g2
Genna Sosonko's recent book Russian Silhouettes
(New in Chess, $ 19.95), will be
a classic. Having spent half of his life in the Soviet Union (he was born
there in 1943), half in the Netherlands, and all of it in chess, first as a
Soviet trainer, then as a western top-level tournament player, he is an
ideal observer of that lost Golden Age of Chess, the Soviet era. Of
course, to be able to tell us about it, he had to be a good writer as well,
and he is a wonderful writer.
His portraits of the greats (Botvinnik, Tal, Geller,
Polugaevski), the great trainers (Furman, Koblentz, Zak), the forgotten
(Levenfish), the tragic (Vitolins and Grigoryan) and the magnificent
(Princess Olga, Capablanca's Russian second wife) and of the world of
Soviet chess, are sometimes bitter, often loving, always nostalgic and
understanding. To anybody who wants to know and feel Soviet Chess, this
book is indispensable.
But I wasn't going to review it.
I was struck
by a detail in Sosonko's account of how he came to chess. As so many
grandmasters, he was taught the game by his mother. "Sometimes in the
evening, after supper, an old cardboard board would appear on [the table],
and we would play draughts or chess. The board was torn in several places,
particularly in the g2 square. Psychoanalysts will easily link this fact
with my predilection for the fianchetto of my king's bishop throughout my
professional career."
I do believe in this kind of thing. How do players
come to prefer closed positions over open ones, Knights over Bishops, why
are there d4-players and e4-players? Sosonko might have become either: "My
mother always began a game of chess by advancing both of her central pawns
two squares." This belongs in my collection of strange rules players
started their careers with. I played my first games with a boy who
taught me that if your pawn reached the other side, it became a Queen, but
if your King got there, you could choose five new pieces,
as far as stocks went. I wonder if I got
my liking for King's marches, and, generally, my wacky style from that. I
would have preferred Sosonko's mother's 1.e4d4 opening; I might have been
inspired to some more respect for the centre, as Sosonko was.
There isn't a game or a diagram in the book, but
there are several descriptions of games.
It can be fun to find the games that go with these descriptions. Here
is one: "I can picture well Lyova's [Polugaevsky's] face after he had won
one of his best known games at the USSR Championship in Moscow in 1969
against Tal, when I was the second of the losing side. The variation that
occurred in this game had been analysed by Misha and me earlier, during
our preparation for his match with Korchnoi, and, as it seemed to us,
quite thoroughly. We did not examine in particular detail the position that
arose after Black's 20th move. In fact, Black was a piece up, White's rook
and knight were attacked, and there did not appear to be any direct threats.
Lyova however, had analysed deeper. He found a continuation of the attack
and he won prettily. Geller later remembered that on the evening before
this game he had dropped in at Polugaevski's room in the hotel and had seen
some position set out on the board. That same position was reached the
following day in Lyova's game against Tal on move 25!"
Polugaevsky - Tal, ch USSR, Moscow 1969
1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.d4 c5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.e4 Nxc3 7.bxc3 cxd4
8.cxd4 Bb4+ 9.Bd2 Bxd2+ 10.Qxd2 O-O 11.Bc4 Nc6 12.O-O b6 13.Rad1 Na5 14.Bd3
Bb7 15.Rfe1 Rc8 16.d5 exd5 17.e5 Nc4 18.Qf4 Nb2 19.Bxh7+ Kxh7 20.Ng5+ Kg6
(see diagram) 21.h4 Rc4 22.h5+ Kh6 23.Nxf7+ Kh7 24.Qf5+ Kg8
25.e6 Qf6 26.Qxf6 gxf6 27.Rd2
Rc6 28.Rxb2 Re8 29.Nh6+ Kh7 30.Nf5 Rcxe6 31.Rxe6 Rxe6 32.Rc2 Rc6 33.Re2
Bc8 34.Re7+ Kh8 35.Nh4 f5 36.Ng6+ Kg8 37.Rxa7 and Black resigned.
112. 27 April: Draughtsmen are the soul of draughts
Every
chess player knows that Philidor (1726-1795), the author of the first chess
book in which some strategic principles were explained, and the strongest
player of his day, said that the pawns are the soul of chess, and that
he was also a famous musical composer.
Lesser known facts about him are that he was the
child of a 73-year old father and a 20-year old mother, and that he was
also among the best players at another game: draughts. He even has a
draughts book to his name ("Sr. Philidor"), Traité
sur le jeu de Dames a la Polonaise (Amsterdam, 1785) but, according
to draughts historian Arie van der Stoep, this was a pirate edition of
an earlier book by Manoury with almost the same title: Essai sur le
jeu de Dames a la Polonaise. Doubtless, this was an attempt to cash
in on Philidor's fame as a chess author, which he had acquired with his 1749
book, L'analyze du jeu des Échecs.
There are no surviving complete draughts games by
Philidor, but there are a few positions, of which I will give three. Of
all the draughts and checkers variants played in the world, this is
still the only truly international form, Polish Draughts. I won't
explain the rules, but the notation runs from square 1 in the upper left
corner to 50 in the bottom right one.
 |
This position, with White to play, is from a game Philidor
- Spencer ("the Dutchman"), played in Manoury's Paris coffee house.
A date is not given. The piece on 48 is a Queen.
1.36-31 24x42 2.44-39 48x34 3.28-23 34x36 4.8-3 36x9 5. 3x3 and White wins |
 |
This position and the next one could be from games, but they could
also be dressed-up practical combinations, or compositions outright. Anyway,
they read: Philidor, White to play and win.
Here, the solution is: 1.28-23 19x37 2.42x22 25x23 3.39-34 17x28 4.34-29 23x34 5.24-20 15x24 6.44-40 35x44 7.50x6 and White wins. |
 |
Philidor, White to play and win
(There is a Queen on 8.) 1.29-24 30x28 2.21-17 12x21 3.26x17 8x48 4.20-14 6x17 5.39-33 48x9 6.33x4 and White wins.
|
111. 26 April: Code
Thanks to Eric Schiller for sending me this.
110. 25 April: The Queen's epaulettes
Re the long distance epaulette mate in Van Wely - Morozevich (item 88),
Alastair Scott sent me a very unusual case of a Queen
being epauletted, from a 3-minute blitz game he lost, late at night,
against his computer.
Computer - Scott, London 2001
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ Bd7 4.Bxd7+ Qxd7 5.O-O Nc6 6.d4 cxd4 7.Nxd4 Nf6
8.Nc3 e6 9.Bg5 Be7 10.Ndb5 a6 11.Bxf6 gxf6 12.Nd4 O-O-O 13.Nxc6 Qxc6
14.Qh5 Qe8 15.Rfd1 Qg8 16.Rd4 Kb8 17.Ne2 Rf8 (see diagram)
18.e5, winning an important pawn. Black resigned.
PS 27 april: When Alastair Scott sent me this position,
he said how embarrassed he really felt about it. His excuse was that
it had happened in a totally unimportant blitz game against a computer, when
he was tired. If he was embarrassed with a valid excuse, then how
embarrassed should I be when in the middle of a bright day, full of vim
and vigor, and perfectly lucid, I put this in my Diary without noticing,
as reader Jos Sulistyo did ("Pardon me for being so incredibly naive") that
after 18 ... Rd8 there are no epaulettes and no pawn wins? (19.exf6 Bxf6
20.Rf4 Qg7 21.Qf3 Be7 22.Rxf7 Qxb2). I guess everybody saw this, but
nobody dared to tell me.
What should I do? Turn to draughts?
109. 13 April: Unsoundstudyrepairman, where are you (was: Pawn sacrifices).
In the April 2001 issue of EG, this diagram caught my eye.
It is a White to play and win study by David
Gurgenidze, and it was the winner at the composers congress in St.
Petersburg, 1998.
The Bg1 guards against White's promotion. Therefore:
1.d5+ Kf5 2.e4+ Kg4 (Kxe4? 3.b8Q Bh2+ 4.d6+) 3.f3+ Kh5 (Kxf3? 4.b8Q Bh2+
5.e5 Bxe5+ 6.d6+) 4.b8Q! Bh2+ 5.f4 Bxf4+ 6.e5 Bxe5+ 7.d6 Bxd6+ 8.Kd7
Bxb8 9.Bf3 mate Very funny. Three pawns in succession are refused by
the King, but must be mopped up by the black Bishop, clearing the road to
the mating square f3 for the white one.
The set theme, a threefold successive pawn
sacrifice, was shown doubly here.
PS 14 april: Watchdogs Frederic Friedel and Rik van der Heiden showed that after 8...Nxg5, Black wins the Bh6, and certainly doesn't lose. I can only add that 7...Nxg5 seems even stronger.
PS
16 april: It seems that Unsoundstudyrepairman did arrive in the person of
Laurent Linnemer, a French reader. He changes the Nh3 into a Pawn (Roman
Parparov had that idea, too), but he also adds a black pawn on a5 (see
diagram), and now the solution works as intended.
1.d5+ Without the Pa5, White would also win
with 1.e4 Bh2+ 2.e5 Rg8 3.b8Q Rxb8 4.Kxb8 etc., but with that pawn,
Black draws 1...Kf5 2.e4+ Kg4 3.f3+ Kh5 4.b8Q! Bh2+ 5.f4 Bxf4+ 6.e5
Bxe5+ 7.d6 and now: 7...Rxh6 8.Qb5 Re6 (Bxd6+ 9.Kd7 Rh8 10.Be4 and
wins) 9.Qxe5 Rxe5 10.d7 and wins, or 7...Bxd6+ 8.Kd7 Rxh6 (Bxb8
9.Bf3 mate) 9.Qb5 as above; 9...Rh8 10.Be4 and wins.
108. 8 April: A forgotten chessplayer
In the April issue of SCHACH, there is a review of a book by Beat
Rüegsegger, Persönlichkeiten und das Schachspiel (Celebrities and
chess) in which it is mentioned that Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Ilyich
Ulyanov, the later Lenin, played chess with each other in Vienna, in 1909.
This is of course a well-known fact, but it should not have been left
unmentioned that Elvis was there, too.
Perhaps Hitler has played chess. Cor Jansen sent me this quote
from a little known book,
Schach ohne Partner für Könner by Herbert Grasemann (1982):
"When [Hitler] had not yet decided to devote himself to politics,
and, as a twenty-year old without any plans for the future, was a drifter
in Vienna, he frequented the chess cafes of that city, sitting there for
entire nights. The game fascinated him so much that he feared it could,
as it had so many others, totally absorb him, and take over his life.
Therefore, he decided to break with it overnight."
A footnote then explains that Hitler told about
this episode of his life to his legal adviser and intimate friend Hans
Frank, ordering him to be absolutely silent about it, "because the image of
a chess
addict did not fit with the legend of one destined by providence to change
the world." Frank, Generalgouverneur of Poland during the war, and
hanged at Nuremberg in 1946, was a true chess lover, playing some ill-famed
consultation games with Alekhine and Bogoljubow in Warsaw in 1941. He told
the story of Hitler's chess love to the problemist Ado Kraemer, who in
turn, told it to Grasemann.
107. 3 April: Euwe stamps
Today, at the Max Euwe Center,
Max Euweplein Amsterdam, a sheet of two 80-cent postage stamps,
commemorating
Euwe's centennial (he was born 20 May 1901), was introduced. The position
in the left stamp is from Euwe's most famous game, The Zandvoort
Pearl, the 26th game of his 1935 match against Alekhine. Euwe won
that game, a big step in becoming World Champion.
Some other good news I heard there is that the
Center can breathe with some relief; the owner of their quarters have been
told by the City of Amsterdam that they should not, as they planned, raise
the rent a prohibitive 250 %. (See item 84.)
There was a thread recently in
rec.games.chess.misc about the pronunciation of the name Euwe.
I've seen many wrong solutions for English, and it is so simple: you
pronounce we exactly as in jewel, and eu as in Peter
Seller's immortal line as Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther:
"There's a beum in my reum."
Anyone want to trade an Estonian 5 Kroon
Keres banknote for an Euwe-sheet?
106. 1 April: Did you hear the one about the bishop and...
Regarding Bishop corner-to-corner moves (see item 105), Frederic Friedel sent me this problem, the winner in a composing contest where that move was the theme.
 |
| Mate in 24
John Nunn, 1991 |
PS 6 April: Joost de Heer sent me the problem below. Count for yourself.
 |
| Selfmate in 28
Mark Kirtley The Problemist, 1994 |
1.Bh8 h5 2.Ba1 a3 3.Bh8 a2 4.Ba1 a4 5.Bh8 a3 6.Ba1 a5 7.Bh8 a4 8.Ba1 a6 9.Bh8 a5 10.Ba1 h6 11.Bh8 a1=Q 12.Bxa1 a2 13.Bh8 a1Q 14.Bxa1 a3 15.Bh8 a2 16.Ba1 a4 17.Bh8 a3 18.Ba1 h4 19.Bh8 h5 20.Ba1 h3 21.Bh8 a1Q 22.Bxa1 a2 23.Bh8 a1Q 24.Bxa1 h2 25.Bh8 h4 26.Ba1 h3 27.Bh8 N(e)- 28.R, N or BxN Ng3 mate
105. 29 March: Never in a trillion
Playing over a few games from the Keres Memorial rapid-tournament, held
in Tallinn (Estonia) in January, I noticed a move Bh8-a1, played by
Svidler, with Black, in the game he lost against the tournament winner,
Jan Timman.
This Bishop move from corner to corner is a very
special one. Together with Rook's pawn moves, it is the only one that only
guards one new square and it is also, sharing this shame with King moves
along the sides of the board, and from the corner, the only move that
cannot be mate. I also thought that Bh8-a1 and its mirrors would be among
the least played moves and they are, but in my 1,4 million game database, I
still found over 200 examples, and even a few games where this move
happened more than once.
This raised three questions: how many different
chess moves are there; how many moves have been played since the
beginning of modern chess, and: which moves are perhaps still waiting to
be played for the first time?
After a little
counting and calculating, I arrived at the number of 43732 (see PS2)
different chess
moves. I took the moves absolutely; that is, wNg1-f3 is not the same
as wNb1-c3 or wNg8-f6, or bNg1-f3. It is also different from Ng1xf3, which
again, depending on who captures what, can be ten different moves,
from wNg1xPf3 to wNg1xRf3 to bNg1xBf3. I did not consider the
effects of moves - check, double check, mate, stalemate.
The total number of moves played since chess got its
modern rules, towards the end of the 15th century, must be around
1,000,000,000,000; one trillion. Here is how I arrived at this number.
There are 6 billion people on earth. If 1 in a 1000
plays chess, there are 6 million chess players. To be on the safe
side, I divide by 6; 1 million chess players. At one game a day, they play
500,000 games daily, and as the year has 400 days, that is 200,000,000
games per year, or 20,000,000,000 (twenty billion) games during the last
century. As an average game lasts 30 moves, we multiply by 60, arriving at
a total of 1,200,000,000,000 moves; 1,2 trillion. Again, in order not to
overestimate (there weren't always 6 billion people during the last
century, and a year is not 400 days), we forget about the other
centuries, do not count analyzing, playing over and composing, and tip the
conservatives two hundred billion moves - leaving, as said, one
trillion moves.
The question of whether this trillion contains
all the 43732 possible moves, can be answered immediately; no,
promotions to Rook or Bishop are too rare for that. Only some 50 cases are
known, while there are 256 possible promotions to Rook or Bishop; from
f7xBg8R to d2xNc1B. There must also be Knight promotions that have never
yet occurred: of all the possible capturing Knight promotions on corner
squares, for instance, I just found one g2xRh1N, leaving fifteen of those
promotions unplayed.
But the regular moves? I discovered that there has
never been a backward corner-to-corner Bishop move capturing a
Rook (but see PS4), and Kings that capture centre pawns from the back
rank are also very rare. Here are eleven (PS4 again) candidates for the
Least Played Move ever - I did not find them in my database.
wBa8xRh1 - wBh8xRa1 - bBa1xRh8 - bBh1xRa8 - bBa8xNh1 - bBa1xNh8
- wBa8xBh1 - wKc8xPd7 - bKd1xPd2 - bKe1xPd2 - bKf1xPe2
My candidate for Most Played Move Ever is wNg1-f3.
PS1 (1 April): ICC admin Brian Karen tells me that on ICC, 124,000 games are played daily. That would mean that one ICC-year takes care of over a quarter of a percent of all the moves/games ever played. This seems much, and suggests my estimate was too low.
PS2 (2 April): Originally, I had 43660 different chess moves. Reader Rick Shepherd however, having duplicated my calculation, demanded a recount. He had arrived at 43732 moves and recalculating again, I discovered he was right. The difference was caused partly by a simple adding mistake, but also by the fact that I had neglected special cases like wKc6xPb7 and bKb2xBa1, which are not possible.
PS3 (2 April): I thought some more about those 124,000 games played daily at ICC (PS1) - a quarter of my estimate of all the chess games in the world. That seems much, but then again: if the world had 100 cities with 10 chess cafes where 10 games were always going on, that would not be so much more than my half a million.
PS4 (2 April, 27 May): As I had expected, several readers sent me games with moves that I had not found in my own database, leaving just four Unplayed Moves: wBa8xRh1 - bBa1xRh8 - wKc8xPd7 - bKd1xPd2
PS5 (14 May 2007): Reader Thomas Binder informs me that searching his database, he found that all four remaining Unplayed Moves of PS4 have in the meantime been played. So all 43732 possible moves have now been played - except, of course, some 200 underpromotions; see above.
104. 26 March: Stalemate trap
For a book he's writing, a friend asked me for stalemates from games. That
made me think of a good trap I once managed. I'm not 100 % sure of the
position (it is from a blitz game TK - M., Amsterdam 1976), but it
worked like this. Being totally lost, I tried 1.Bg1 And he took the
bait: 1...Bg2+ 2.Kf2 Qxe5 3.a6+ and stalemate next move.
This is, in fact, the Kling theme, a problem
and endgame study theme. The Bc5 crosses the critical square f2,
where it is then shut off by the King.
103. 22 March: Nabokov as a feminist
The movie Luzhin's Defence by Marleen Gorris tells the following
story.
Luzhin, a totally chaotic and unworldly chess grandmaster,
plays in a tournament for the world championship, in a resort at an Italian
lake, in 1929. A beautiful young Russian lady, Natalia, feels attracted
to him. He falls in love with her and asks her to marry him; she introduces
him to sex. Luzhin's former chess mentor and manager Valentinov is at the
resort too; he works for Luzhin's great rival Turati now, and with all
sorts of tricks, he tries to harm Luzhin. In the tournament, both Luzhin
and Turati win their preliminaries, and now they meet each other in the
world championship match, which consists of one game. When this game
is adjourned in a seemingly lost position for Luzhin, Valentinov has him
kidnapped. During this kidnap, Luzhin suddenly sees how he can win with
a brilliant Rook move. He is left behind in the wild, and suffers a nervous
breakdown. After being saved, he is brought to a clinic, where it is found
that he can only be cured if he gives up chess. He obeys, and the marriage
with Natalia is announced. While she is already waiting in the church,
Luzhin, on his way to the altar, is again kidnapped by Valentinov, now to
finish that world championship game; Turati is sure he will win easily.
Luzhin escapes, and commits suicide by jumping from the window of his hotel
room. Between his belongings, a scrap of paper is found with the winning
Rook move. Natalia convinces Turati, who is still around, to let her finish
the game. She wins, he acknowledges his defeat.
The book The Defence by Vladimir Nabokov tells this story.
Luzhin, a rather unworldly and chaotic chess grandmaster,
is staying in a German spa where he prepares for the Candidates Tournament
for the world championship, which will be played later in Berlin. A Russian
"nice but not very interesting girl" feels attracted to him, and he to
her; he asks her to marry him. Later, when the tournament takes place in
Berlin (where the girl is living), the game between Luzhin and his great
rival Turati will be decisive. During this game, Luzhin suffers a nervous
breakdown, and when the game is adjourned in an unclear position, he collapses
in the street. He is brought to a clinic, where it is found that he
can only be cured if he gives up chess. He obeys, and the girl (who remains
nameless) and he marry. A few months pass, without chess, and without much
else. Chess sometimes seeps into Luzhin's existence (columns in papers,
a chess scene in a movie) and the madness starts again. When Luzhin's former
chess mentor and manager Valentinov asks him to be an extra in a chess
scene in a movie (Turati will take part, too) Luzhin realizes he will never
be able to conquer the chess demons, and he commits suicide by jumping
from the window in his house.
The film looks marvelous and would, stripped of its narrative elements,
be an asset to any historical TV-channel. The infantile plot makes you
wonder whether the disrespect is greater towards the book or towards
chess. It takes a sad sort of guts to turn a novel about the tragic enchantment
of chess into a feminist pamphlet; man is too weak, woman must finish his
work for him.
There was a chess consultant, Jon (John in
the credits) Speelman, but he has not been able to prevent this
movie-Luzhin from out-caricaturing all the weirdos the chess world has ever
known. Or the grandmasters from blowing cigar smoke in each other's faces,
with expressions saying: "Didn't see that, eh, mac". Or the players from
battering away at the clocks like furious postal workers who have
decided that today, finally, they will gorgeously stamp all
fragile items to smithereens.
Based upon an endgame study by Knothe, Speelman constructed the game's
finish. (See diagram.)
In this position, Luzhin (with Black, and in time
trouble) plays the brilliant 1...Nxf4 which, however, is nonsense
without the Rook move he sees only later. 2.exf4 Here, the game
is adjourned; in the papers of the dead Luzhin, Natalia finds the following
win: 2...Re3+ 3.Kg4 f5+ 4.Kg5 Kg7 5.Nd5 Rh3! The brilliant Rook move
Luzhin saw during his kidnap. 5.gxh3 h6+ 6.Kh4 Bf2 mate
It is strange that after the adjournment, Turati
and Valentinov insist on finishing the game - apparently, in all the days
that must have passed between Luzhin's breakdown and his marriage, they
haven't seen that move Rh3. It is a brilliant move, but it would
be found by any reasonable chess player who looked at the position for
longer than a quarter of an hour. Beside that, we may assume that an
adjourned position deciding a world championship would have been in the
papers all over the world - thousands of chessplayers would have looked at
it for hours, for days. And nobody, nobody has seen Rh3, or has cared to
send a telegram. And even when Natalia plays Rh3, Turati still doesn't see
it coming.
But who cares, in a movie where a man is supposed
to play a game for the world championship on the way to his wedding.
102. 17 March: Twins for me
 |
| Mate in 5
Twins: a) Diagram b) Pa7 to g7 Gerard Bouma, 2001 Dedicated to Tim Krabbé |
Trying to solve these elegant miniature twins gave me a pleasure that I invite the reader to share. I did solve them (found the ways to mate Black in time), but I confess that I missed the wittiest point of the whole thing.
In a), 1.Qg7 (Kd8 2.Bd6 etc.) is defeated by O-O-O! Therefore: 1.Qc5 Kd7 2.Qd6+ Kc8 3.Qc6+ Kd8 4.Kf7 and 5.Be7 mate
In b), this doesn't work because Black has 4...Ra7+ Now, however, White can play 1.Qxg7 There follows 1...Kd8 2.Bd6 Ra7 3.Qxa7 and mate in two more moves. But can't Black castle here? That is what this problem is really about. He can't. If he could, his last move should have been with the Pf6. If it was f7-f6, then the white King, in its march to g8, would necessitate the black King to have been away from e8 temporarily. If the Pf6 captured to f6 in its last move (this is what I forgot), then the Bf8 must be a promoted Pf7 - also proving the black King must at some time have moved. No castling.
Thanks to those readers who sent me solutions - most of them entirely correct.
101. 10 March: 
Wow! Made it to the KC Hotlist. So why not invite my readers to click away from here and go to the sites you can click to from there.
© Tim Krabbé, 2000, 2001
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