Greenpoint Chess and Go Club

White to move and mate in two

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→ Solution to the last problem

From the Internet Chess Club weekly newsletter, volume III, issue X:

The Morelia-Linares super-tournament has now concluded in Spain—and everyone agrees it rated as one of the most entertaining and interesting elite event of recent years!

Those were more or less the words world champion Vishy Anand used as he talked to Macauley Peterson for Chess.FM after his final round game on Friday, after he successfully held off the challenge of the young pretender to his throne, Magnus Carlsen, to win for the second successive year.

While we rightly congratulate Anand for taking the title by just half a point from Carlsen (who fought till the bitter end against Radjabov to try to seal a final round win to tie with Anand), we also have to recognize the performances of late from the young Norwegian that will see yet another seismic shift in his rating.

With his results at Corus and Morelia-Linares, Carlsen is set to become a new permanent force in the top ten for years to come. His new rating in the upcoming April list is rumored to be as high as world #5, and knocking heavily on the #4 spot. Messers. Kramnik, Anand, Topalov & Morozevich look set to be nervously looking over their collective shoulders if the Carslen rating tsunami continues!

Final Standings

1. Anand, V
2. Carlsen, M
3. Aronia, L
4. Topalov, V
5. Radjabov, T
6. Ivanchuk, V
7. Leko, P
8. Shirov, A

→ Get all games in PGN format

Pic, final standings, and PGN from ChessBase News

White to move and mate in two

Otto Wurzburg
American Chess Bulletin, September–October, 1939

→ Solution | Solution to the last problem

Source: Howard, K.S. (1961). How to solve chess problems. Second revised edition. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

From the Internet Chess Club weekly newsletter, volume III, issue IX:

The two-continent affair that is Morelia-Linares has now moved from Mexico to its ancestral home in Spain—and it's now turning into an intriguing duel of the ages between world champion Vishy Anand, and the young pretender to his throne, Magnus Carlsen!

Both players are setting a blistering pace in a super-tournament that seems to be breaking all records for decisive games, with 20(!) so far from 36. Top seed Anand holds onto what could well become a crucial half point lead at the top—but he doesn't need to look down too far to find his hungry young challenger, with his third successive win, hot on his tail and looking for his second successive super-tournament victory in as many months.

And in what could well be a portent of things to come, the big showdown between Anand and Carlsen is set for today (Sat., 1 March) in Linares—and you can catch a ringside seat for it at ICC Chess.FM, with commentary coming from Mig Greengard and GM Larry Christiansen.

→ Official tournament website

White to play and win

Helmuth Steniczka
Commended, Schach-Echo, 1958

→ Solution

Source: Avni, A. (1998). Surprise in Chess. London: Cadogan Books

From ChessCafe.com via bicyclethief:

Kasparov-Kramnik 2000
Karsten Müller
58 page PDF

via Greg:

Glenn Kaino's installation "Learn to win or you will take losing for granted," is an eye catching 7 3/4' x 7 3/4' chess board made of wood and wood crates. Playing with the classic theme of good vs. evil, the pieces are cast bronze depicting different hand gestures with both negative or positive connotations, depending on which "team" you are on.

From the Orange County Museum of Art's Disorderly Conduct: Recent Art in Tumuluous Times exhibition, which also features a number of B&W paintings of intense expressions on chess players' faces.

Thanks for taking these, Phil!

White to move and mate in three

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In the Land of Fischer, Dismay and Awe
Saki Knafo
New York Times 10 February 2008

On Saturdays, a dozen habitués of the Brooklyn Chess Club sit under fluorescent lights in a synagogue in Canarsie, moving plastic pawns and bishops across rubbery chess mats.

Despite its name, the club is in no way related to the Brooklyn Chess Club of the 1950s, where the former world champion Bobby Fischer studied as a boy. Nevertheless, when Mr. Fischer died on Jan. 17, at the age of 64, David Rybstein, the founder and president of the Canarsie club, suddenly found himself fielding inquiries from the news media.

"Some local reporters, some Internet places," Mr. Rybstein said with a shrug. "They wanted to know if it affected the membership whether Fischer was in or out of chess, alive or dead, and I said no."

(more…)

Woody tries the scholar's mate against one of the strongest chess players in history! Very classy.

→ Woody Harrelson vs Garry Kasparov (1/2-1/2!!) at ChessGames.com

Thanks, Nikola.

White to move and mate in two

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From Gambit: The New York Times Chess Blog:

The Serbian publication Sahovski Informator (Chess Informant) recently marked 42 years of operation with its 100th volume. Appearing three times a year (twice a year over most of its run), Informant provides hundreds of deeply annotated games, as well as combinations and endings. To render the commentary internationally understandable, the editors invented a language of symbols to evaluate moves and positions (e.g., "+=" means white has a slight advantage) still in wide usage today. The chess community is particularly grateful for the openings classification system known as ECO codes, after its five-volume work Encyclopedia of Chess Openings.

In the 70s and early 80s, Informant was considered the chess bible, and for many fans and competitors, it presented the only access to game scores from foreign tournaments. Players were greatly honored to have a game published in its pages. A lingo even developed around Informant terms: If someone spoke of a "box" move, you knew he was referencing the symbol for a forced or only move.

Its "biblical" status began to fade in the mid-80s with the advent of commercial chess databases. The Internet dealt an even more serious blow. Annotated games from major competitions are generally available online the next day. Many events are even covered live. Moreover, the wordless analysis of Informant may not differ much from the output of chess engines owned by most serious players.

Most young players today do not subscribe to Informant, if they even know of its existence. Far fewer Western grandmasters contribute analysis than in the periodical's heyday. Amateurs rarely dream anymore of making it into Informant.

→ Read the entire article

White to move and mate in four

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White to move and mate in two

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Thanks for sending this, Nikola!

Lawrence Day vs Jan Timman
Day, LA . 1980
Hungarian Opening: General [A00]

This is a beautiful example of underpromotion saving the day in a real game. If White promotes the pawn to anything other than a knight, Rh1 is checkmate. If White doesn't move the pawn, but instead moves the king, Black takes the pawn and wins.

Sneaky "checked this with 'Tablebase' to see if either Day or Timman made any mistakes after 71.g8=N+! and I found that their play was perfect from that point on. I know that there are some rare positions where a rook can beat a knight, and they all have to do with a king trapped on the edge or in the corner like in this game, but [Day] played it perfectly. To give [Timman] his due, he forced [Day] to find a few 'only moves' along the way to the game's rightful conclusion."

(more…)

White to mate in two

Alexander Kish
Entry in Pawn-One-Two Tourney
American Chess Bulletin, May–June, 1936

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Source: Howard, K.S. (1961). How to solve chess problems. Second revised edition. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

From the New York Post:

January 31, 2008—The city's chess kings have been overthrown.

Middle-schoolers at IS 318 in Brooklyn rocked the New York chess community this week by winning the citywide championships in Manhattan—knocking off the reigning national champs, Edward R. Murrow HS.

Playing above their age bracket, the five-member team of 13- and 14-year-olds bested the Brooklyn high schoolers—who have won four straight national chess titles—and seven other high-school squads to earn a spot at the state championships in Saratoga Springs in March.

"It shows how we have a very good team," said eighth-grader Michael Poguero, 13, the team's top-ranked player. "When you face the best and beat them, it makes you feel great."

(more…)

A bonus problem this week, thanks to bicyclethief!

White to mate in three

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It's the final day of Corus Chess and Magnus Carlsen and Lev Aronian are tied for first place with 7.5 points apiece. The big event yesterday was Carlsen's win over Vladimir Kramnik with Carlsen playing Black! Check it out here!

Update: Aronian and Carlsen tied for first place with eight points. Anand tied for third with 7.5 points, and Kramnik tied for seventh with 6.5 points.
View the final standings.

White to mate in two

Add a comment to this post with your solution. I'll buy a beer for the first person to correctly solve the problem next Tuesday, during our regular session at Matchless.

I often hear chess players referred to as "Class A" players, "experts," and "masters," but I wasn't sure exactly what these adjectives meant. Were they simply descriptive terms or were they part of a system? Did they rely on rating; FIDE or USCF? Thanks to a quick bit of Googling, now I know:

Source: About.com: Introduction to Chess Ratings