Scarborough Community of Toronto Chess News & Views Newsletter of / Le Journal de Scarborough Chess Club “ FRIENDLY Chess Since 1960 ” ITEMS OF INTEREST TO BOTH MEMBERS & NON-MEMBERS Issue # 13-20 – June 15, 2012 Is Chess “ Played Out “ ? In assessing the recent WCC match on CMA’s ChessTalk, we thought the following posts particularly interesting: May 31, 2012, 07:46 AM #1 Brad Thomson Re: WCC 2012: Assessment Join Date: May 2008 Capablanca said chess was played out, but his statement Posts: 83 was proven to be premature. Fischer said the same thing, Rep Power: 5 and by then the writing was certainly on the wall. Today, chess IS played out. Not by humans perhaps, but by Houdini and other software programs. It was inevitable that chess would become played out, in essence, once software analyzed chess positions better than humans. And we have passed this threshold. Now, we have a situation where players remember and play as much Houdini as possible, and then seek to exchange, simplify and draw once they are out of their Houdini. They do this, of course, in case their oppenent is still in his Houdini, and might catch them in something as a result. Players do not want to risk thinking when they play chess. It is time for Fischerandom. Things will only continue to get progressively worse if chess persists with the original starting position. Change tends to come slowly, and so I do not expect this shift to take place immediately. But it must come sooner or later, so why prolong the necessary and inevitable? ______________________Continued on next page___________________________ SCTCN&V Website : http://scarboroughchess.webhop.net SCC e – mail : [email protected] SCC Website : http://www.ScarboroughChessClub.ca Birkdale Community Ctre, 1299 Ellesmere Road ( between Midland Ave. and Brimley Road ) May 31, 2012, 09:00 AM #1 Tom O'Donnell Re: Anand is new WC Join Date: May 2008 Quote: Posts: 448 Originally Posted by Paul Bonham Rep Power: 5 Very well put, Nicolas. The resistance to much needed change is what turns a WC match into a drawfest of the dullest proportions. I do believe that at some point, hopefully very near, the top level players themselves, tiring of the computer engine aspect to chess, will enact the change to chess960 (or FischerRandom). ... This leads to a very interesting question. On the one hand I tend to agree with the camp that computers definitely help weaker players more than stronger ones and that therefore the best players should do better in a game with no opening preparation such as chess960. On the other hand, perhaps they would no longer be the best players since their ratings now are based in part on the quality of their opening preparation and intelligent use of computers. Perhaps someone outside of the top-10 might be the best at chess960, though I would be amazed if it were someone outside of the 2700 club. What do you think has been the effect on traditional chess by computers in the last decade? What do you think of the suggestion that it is inevitable that FischerRandom Chess will popularly replace traditional classical chess? Send us your thoughts, we’ll publish them, and maybe we can start a discussion on the “ future of chess “! Women’s World Rapid Chess Championship This tournament of 50 top women players in the world took place in Georgia from May 31 to June3. The winner was former Women’s World Champion, Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria. Here is the final top crosstable: Rk. Name FED Rtg Pts. TB1 TB2 TB3 1 GM Stefanova Antoaneta BUL 2518 8.5 61.5 74.5 2700 2 GM Kosteniuk Alexandra RUS 2457 8.0 61.5 74.5 2672 3 GM Koneru Humpy IND 2589 8.0 60.5 74.5 2630 4 GM Lahno Kateryna UKR 2546 8.0 57.5 70.5 2639 5 GM Muzychuk Anna SLO 2598 7.5 59.5 70.5 2554 6 GM Harika Dronavalli IND 2508 7.5 53.0 64.0 2563 7 GM Dzagnidze Nana GEO 2547 7.0 53.0 65.5 2562 Women’s World Blitz Championship This swiss was played in Georgia on June 4 & 5. Here is the final standings at the top: Rk. Name FED Rtg Pts. TB1 TB2 TB3 1 IM Gunina Valentina RUS 2530 13.0 116.0 133.0 2804 2 GM Zhukova Natalia UKR 2442 10.5 113.0 129.5 2629 3 GM Muzychuk Anna SLO 2598 10.5 110.5 129.5 2612 4 GM Kosteniuk Alexandra RUS 2457 10.0 113.0 131.5 2583 5 GM Stefanova Antoaneta BUL 2518 9.5 114.5 134.5 2559 6 GM Dzagnidze Nana GEO 2547 9.5 112.5 132.0 2543 7 WGM Ding Yixin CHN 2353 9.5 93.0 105.0 2544 Autobiography of William Lombardy ( submitted by freelancer, Erik Malmsten ) American GM Lombardy has self-published Understanding Chess: My System, My Games, My Life available from www.gmlombardy.com.ar. Understanding Chess is a good title as he does have a great understanding of chess positions. He shares over 100 of his games with a mixture of pretty combos and strong strategic wins. Lombardy has the ability to assess that he has the better structure and knows which pieces to exchange – "There is no such thing as an even trade!" – to simplify to a winning endgame. Going through the games with a chess program really shows the strengths and limits of computers. The program would occasionally find stronger tactical moves, say +6 instead of +3, but would often assess a position as equal that Lombardy shows is clearly winning. He writes, "The efficient placement of pieces, not deep calculation, is the essence of successful play" and "analysis is over-rated. It is merely a thought assistant, not a thought creator." Lombardy shares interesting stories such as his childhood in the Bronx in the late 1940s where he played the Jewish old men in the park and joyously received his first chess book. A few years later he would be teaching this other little kid, Bobby Fischer, working on openings together and later be his second in Iceland. Lombardy and Fischer saw Canada's Geza Fuster taken off the train for lack of papers on their way home from the 1958 Interzonal. In the 1960s his time to study and play was limited by seminary school and his work as a Catholic Priest. Why he left the priesthood and later married wasn't discussed in the book. Chessmetrics ranks Lombardy as the 19th top player in the world in 1961, dropping to 53rd in 1978, but still getting wins over Korchnoi and Polugaevsky. He defeated Boris Spassky on the way to winning the 1960 World Team Championship and the Board 1 Gold Medal with 93%. Lombardy at right He finished second in the 1961 US Championship and won the US Open in 1963-65-75. He played board 2 at the 1958 Olympiad and scored at the top as a reserve on the teams in 1970 and '76. In the first Canadian Open, Montreal 1956, he tied for first with Larry Evans, regretting a short last-round draw. He won the World Junior, undefeated, in Toronto 1957 (He reveals that the Russian entrant, Smyslov's stepson, had fallen in love with a local sweetheart). In the 1966 Canadian Open in Kingston he tied for second again behind Evans and had a CFC rating of 2588! In the 1973 Montreal International he tied for second behind Duncan Suttles. Not mentioned in the book was his controversial loss there to Toronto junior Victor Dzera; he did mention his conflicts with American organizers and threatening to punch out an Icelandic player/spectator. The book includes games with Canadians Frank Anderson, Paul Vaitonis, Duncan Suttles, Geza Fuster, Theodore Popov, Mark Schulman and Eric Deskin (book says Ian Findlay but is really David Findlay of Scotland). I really like best games books as opposed to complete games, or tournament collections. Lombardy has been a chess teacher for decades and has taught these games to his students and in lectures at the Marshall Chess Club. Students need to learn "how properly to play and understand the facets of the game independently of high-sounding lectures and classes." Like learning a language, total immersion is the best way to learn chess. "Regular review of games, study and practice." One of his basic principles warns that "castling presents subtle dangers.... Not only should one not rush to castle, but should delay that passive maneuver for as long as good judgment relates that there are more urgent, if only slightly better, tasks to accomplish." Lombardy, William - Saidy, Anthony US Championship, New York 1960 [E71] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.h3 0-0 6.Bg5 c5 7.d5 e6 8.Nf3 h6 9.Be3 exd5 10.exd5 Bf5 11.g4 Be4 12.Be2 Nbd7 Position after 12…Nbd7 XABCDEFGHY 8r+-wq-trk+( 7zpp+n+pvl-' 6-+-zp-snpzp& 5+-zpP+-+-% 4-+P+l+P+$ 3+-sN-vLN+P# 2PzP-+LzP-+" 1tR-+QmK-+R! xabcdefghy 13.Rg1 Bxf3 14.Bxf3 a6 15.Be2 Qa5 16.Kf1 Rfe8 17.Qd2 Kh7 18.Qc2 Qb4 19.Bd2 Qb6 20.h4 Kg8 21.g5 hxg5 22.hxg5 Nh7 23.Rg3 Qd8 24.Kg2 Nhf8 25.Rh1 Bd4 26.Ne4 Qe7 27.Bd3 Bg7 28.Rgh3 Ne5 29.Bc3 f5 30.gxf6 Bxf6 31.f4 Ng4 32.Rg3 Bxc3 33.Qxc3 Qd7 34.Qh8+ Kf7 35.Rh7+ Nxh7 36.Qxh7+ Kf8 37.Qxd7 Re7 38.Qxg4 1-0 FIDE Presidential Race – 2014 ( from Susan Polgar Blog ) Garry Kasparov has confirmed to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that he is firmly committed to push FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov out of office.