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The Oldest GMs

11 May 2008

Much ado is made about the youngest players to obtain the GM rating, but not often do we hear about the oldest. Wikipedia’s list of grandmasters (see It’s Official: 180 GMs by 1978 for background) has date-of-birth and date-of-title for 1099 GMs. This allows to calculate an approximate age when the title was obtained. Some of the data is inaccurate; for example, the calculation for Helgi Gretarsson has him earning the title at 8 years old. With that in mind, here is a list of oldest GMs to have obtained the title. The last column is the calculated age.

I imagine that most, if not all, of these players earned honorary GM titles. Anyone know of an exception?

Asa Hoffmann

9 May 2008

Asa Hoffman (3:15) • ‘Meet Asa Hoffman, a famous New York chess hustler.’

That should be Hoffmann.

What to Send for CJA’s "Best Blog"?

8 May 2008

The Chess Journalists of America has announced their 2008 Journalism Awards which finally includes a prize for the “Best Blog” devoted to chess:

Category 13
Best Blog
Open to online chess blogs. Send URLs of three best blog entries. Blogs judged on visual appeal, content, and ability to draw constructive comments from readers.

They ask for three representative samples between June 1, 2007 and May 31, 2008, and I’m not sure which to send. Perhaps readers and club members can offer their advice? Here is a breakdown by topic — including Opening Analysis; Reviews; Essays, Articles, and Interviews; and Annotated Games.

Which do you think the committee would find most worthy? Which did you like best?

Opening Analysis
Mammoth Traps II: Catching the Queen in the French Wing Gambit
Richard Palliser’s “Fighting the Anti-Sicilians” and Guseinov’s Gambit Refuted?
The Brooklyn Defense
Benjamin’s Classical Hippopotamus
Benjamin’s Games with the Nimzovich Defense
Sidney Bernstein Plays 1…Nc6
A Saemisch Surprise vs. the Alekhine Defense
Anti-Pierce - 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 Bb4!?
Weeramantry - Bisguier, USATE 2008
Urusov Gambit - A Rare Practical Example of 8…d5 9.O-O-O Be6 10.Nxd5!?
Urusov Gambit Update
Urusov Analysis - 3…Nxe4 4.dxe5 Qh4!?
Urusov Analysis - 5.Qxd4 Qe7?!
Refuting 5…Nxe4 in the Scotch Four Knights
Sicilicide or Suicide? Treger - Charbonneau, Marshall CC Ch. 2007
The Philidor Clamp
Queen’s Gambit Declined, Lasker’s Defense
Traxler Counter Attack (Wilkes Barre) Webliography
The Spanish Four Knights, Part III

Reviews
Review of Joel Benjamin’s “American Grandmaster”
Review of Dangerous Weapons 1.e4 e5
Richard Palliser’s “Fighting the Anti-Sicilians” and Guseinov’s Gambit Refuted?
1.d4 Repertoire Books
Paul Hoffman’s Attack on Lies in Chess

Essays, Articles, and Interviews
Tim McGrew
Chess Amateurism
Chess Publishing, Web 2.0 Style
Magnetic Sumo Kings
Pawn Battle Rules & Strategies
USATE 2008 Preview
Chess Narratives Exercise
Google Books III
Chess Tourist Returns
Questionnaire Tag

Annotated Games
Jeff Sarwer - Josh Waitzkin, National Primary Ch. 1986
Season Ends for NJ Knockouts with Loss to NY
Knockouts Keep Playoff Hopes Alive by Drawing Kingfishers
NJ Knockouts Stop the Blitz
NJKO - Blitz Preview
NJ Outwitted by Inventors
NJ Knockouts Slay Carolina Cobras
NJ Knockouts Beat NY Knights
NJ KO’d by Queens
NJ Knockouts Draw Kingfishers
New Jersey Knockouts vs. Tennessee Tempo
New Jersey Knockouts vs. Queens Pioneers
Max Sherer at the 2007 NJ Open

Personally, I’m leaning toward Tim McGrew, Review of Joel Benjamin’s “American Grandmaster”, and Richard Palliser’s “Fighting the Anti-Sicilians” and Guseinov’s Gambit Refuted? But it is hard to choose. Perhaps instead Mammoth Traps II: Catching the Queen in the French Wing Gambit, Season Ends for NJ Knockouts with Loss to NY, USATE 2008 Preview, Review of Dangerous Weapons 1.e4 e5, or Chess Amateurism? Who knows what they will like?

Maybe I’ll post something even better in the next two weeks anyway….

By the way, next week marks the third year that I will have been writing “The Kenilworthian” blog. I will try to develop a list of my best entries, as I did after “A Year of the Kenilworthian” back in May 2006.

The Day I co-won a tournament with John Curdo

7 May 2008

Photo: Robert Oresick

Clearly John Curdo is a chess legend. If John Curdo was a pro ball player, who would he be? To date Curdo has won 807 tournaments over more than 60 years. Won the Mass Open over 17 times (we say “over 17″ because our record keeping is so poor). Cy Young with 511 career victories had an average of 24 wins for 21 years is the baseball player closest I can think of. I bet John Curdo easily won about 4000 wins which is 67 wins per 60 seasons. And still going.
Photo: Steve Stepak

…

Saturday 10/02/2004 early morning I head west on the Mass turnpike. Memories of my playing on the Westfield Chess Team/Club flash in my mind. I turn off at the Palmer/Ware exit now heading on North Main Street Palmer and stop of at RA Manley & Sons Plumbing Supply to talk to past chess teammate Ron Manley who is stuck watching the store and won’t be playing in today’s 2nd Annual Palmer Open. But he said he will drop in. Saying goodbye I head up to the Grange Hall that has conditions right out of the past: the hall is a dark musty building of wood construction of 100+ years old.

Logistics for an exerb tournament is trickier than in cities or suburbia where venues are more static. The director has to show up very early to places like this and deal with the conditions as presented. Set up the computer and make sure that chairs and tables are arranged ok. Move the cows out of the parking lot if necessary(only joking). You have to be more patient with the directors out here as they don’t direct very often and it takes a little longer to work through things.

It’s time for round one and the director Ed Kostreba is beside himself as the open section has only four players for three rounds. I say I’ll play up if it will help. In fact there are 4 sections and only 25 players which make things complicated everywhere because the players don’t want sections to be combined?!

In 2003, the previous year, The 1st Palmer Open had 38 players and Alexander Ivanov blew away the field. I think Ivanov’s biggest challenge of that day was finding a good cup of coffee.

My Westfield State chess coach/sponsor Dr. Les Hutton was playing in the u1600 section and we had a nice reunion. Round 1 I got a 1 point bye being in the Open section; round 2 - I faced a mid 1800 opponent and won a nice game. John Curdo was the strongest player that day. I watched as Curdo created positions so tense they looked painful to look at, then blam they explode in Curdo’s favor, winning his first two rounds.

Final round to be paired: I have two points and Curdo has two points, we are the leaders. We expect to face each other. This will be my first time to face John. My former teammate Ron Manly broke away work to watch me play the last round.

When the parings went up John and I were NOT pared against each other?! We went up to the TD and simultaneously asked what’s going on? TD said that people would have to play each other twice in order for us to face each other. And that’s not going to happen. So I was paired against a mid 1900′ds player, me with Black played a French defense and got to successfully blow him up with a nice bishop sac on his h2.John made short notice of his opponent as well. I WAS CO-WINNER OF THE 2nd ANNUAL PALMER OPEN WITH JOHN CURDO! My grandchildren will hear about this, probably too many times. John, classy guy that he is, gave me a hearty hand shake and congratulations. Later that summer at a college reunion I met several of my Westfield State chess buds and they congratulated me on being so lucky as to not having to face John Curdo.

What ball player or athlete would you equate John Curdo with?

Do you have any good Curdo stories?

Please Comment. Mike Griffin 05/06/2008

Chess Networking

7 May 2008

While working on a possible article for About Chess, I set up profiles on a few of the most popular social networking sites…

…plus a popular chess community…

…Any chess bloggers want to be ‘friends’?

Andor Lilienthal

6 May 2008

A belated happy birthday at the suggestion of Ben Goldberg.

Photos from Chessbase online.

The incredible 92-year-old Andor Lilienthal, who, believe it or not, has chalked up wins against Marshall, Tartakower, Lasker, Capablanca and Alakhine. You don’t believe us? Here are some games…
Age difference 72 years: Lilienthal with FIDE champ Ruslan Ponomariov

Andor Lilienthal, Viatcheslav Beresnev (vice-president of Russian Chess Federation), David Bronstein (79), Anatoly Karpov (ex-world champion) and Alexander Bakh (arbiter)

Andor Lilienthal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

•



Andor Lilienthal
Andor Lilienthal Full name Andor Arnoldovich Lilienthal Country Flag of Hungary Hungary Born May 5, 1911 (1911-05-05)(age 97)
Moscow, Russia Flag of Russia
Title Grandmaster


Andor (Andre, Andrea) Arnoldovich Lilienthal (born May 5, 1911) is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster. In his long career, he played against ten world champions, beating Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, and Vasily Smyslov. Lilienthal, who celebrated his 97th birthday on May 5, 2008, is still active, in good health, driving his car, and writing articles for chess magazines. As of 2008 he is the oldest living Grandmaster.

Lilienthal was born in Moscow to Hungarian Jewish parents and moved to Hungary at age two. He played for Hungary in three Chess Olympiads, 1933, 1935, and 1937. Emigrating to the Soviet Union in 1935, he became a Soviet citizen in 1939. Lilienthal played in the USSR Chess Championship eight times, with his best result being a first place tie with Igor Bondarevsky in 1940. He qualified for the Candidates Tournament once, in 1948.

From 1951 until 1960 he was Tigran Petrosian’s trainer. Lilienthal began a friendship with Vasily Smyslov in 1938, and was Smyslov’s second in his world championship matches against Botvinnik. He retired from tournament play in 1965 and returned to Hungary in 1976.

Lilienthal is one of a few players who have an even record against Capablanca. Here’s his win against Capablanca in Hastings in 1935:

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 b6 6.f3 d5 7.Bg5 h6 8.Bh4 Ba6 9.e4 Bxc4 10.Bxc4 dxc4 11.Qa4+ Qd7 12.Qxc4 Qc6 13.Qd3 Nbd7 14.Ne2 Rd8 15.O-O a5 16.Qc2 Qc4 17.f4 Rc8 18.f5 e5 19.dxe5 Qxe4 20.exf6 Qxc2 21.fxg7 Rg8 22.Nd4 Qe4 23.Rae1 Nc5 24.Rxe4+ Nxe4 25.Re1 Rxg7 26.Rxe4+ Kd7 1-0

References

Three Win First Grand Prix

6 May 2008

Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan, Wang Yue of China and Magnus Carlsen of Norway tied for first in the grand prix tournament in Baku, Azerbaijan. The grand prix is part of a new system to select a challenger for the world championship and the tournament in Baku was the first of six that will played through […]

A New Use for a Chess Set?

5 May 2008

A recent movie that’s probably not For All Ages…

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
http://www.slate.com/id/2189370/

…’And thanks largely to the on-set improvisation of British comic Russell Brand, the initially clichéd Aldous Snow becomes one of the movie’s chief delights. He’s a tribally tattooed free-love advocate who blathers about sobriety, but he’s also a regular bloke who’s not above extending his rival a genuine compliment or demonstrating his renowned sex moves on an outsize chess set.’ • From IMDB: Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008).

Neo-From to King’s Gambit

5 May 2008

Anyone interested in my last post will want to check out “From Neo-From to King’s Gambit: 1.f4 Nc6 2.Nf3 e5!?” by Aaro Jalas, posted today at Chessville.com. It covers not only the Neo-From (which can also arise by 1.f4 e5 2.fxe5 Nc6 3.Nf3) but also King’s Gambit lines, including the Adelaide Counter-Gambit. You won’t have to worry about the Anti-Pierce in this move order, but it sure makes a great repertoire fit.

Anti-Pierce - 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 Bb4!?

4 May 2008

anti-pierce
I have posted an article on “My Anti-Pierce Defense - 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 Bb4!?” which you are not likely to see mentioned in any book (except for one or two that offer up the poorly contested game Steinitz - Winawer, Baden-Baden 1870 as their reason for rejecting it). I think it is fully viable and provides a nice opening shortcut for anyone who can’t bear the thought of wandering into the dark thicket of the Pierce Gambit as Black.

I usually come to this line via transposition from my favorite Adelaide Counter-Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nc6!) As the Mjae website points out (see “Le gambit du Roi refuse par 2…Cc6“), White should meet the Adelaide with 3.Nc3! transposing to the Pierce Gambit or Allgaier Gambit, neither of which would likely suit a counter-gambiteer. You can get some sense of how deep the complications of these lines run by looking at Tim Harding’s articles: Introduction to the Pierce Gambit, Some Theory of the Pierce Gambit, and Last Rites of the Allgaier Gambit. Scary stuff.

Some may claim that these gambits are “refuted,” but I’m not about to spend hours analyzing them both in the dim hope of holding my own over the board against a well-prepared opponent. I have always made it a principle never to play into my opponent’s preparation. And, after all, what is the fun of playing a tricky opening shortcut like the Adelaide Counter-Gambit if your opponent can just turn the tables on you? Clearly we must find a way to turn the tables back again! And I think my anti-Pierce line with 1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nc6! 3.Nc3! Bb4! does just that.

I actually started playing the line one day in blitz before analyzing it or looking at games, and it’s just as well that I did. As I say, theory has nothing of value to offer and most of the games are far from encouraging since Black plays so poorly. If you look through the database, you’ll see some 19th and early 20th Century experiments with the line where Black follows up with a passive …d6 and allows himself to be over-run in the center (with Bb5 and an eventual d4) or on the kingside (beginning with f5). I think a modern player knows instinctively that the whole point of …Bb4 is not to strong-point e5 but to play for counter-pressure on the light squares via …Nf6 and …d5. Black can also consider a later …exf4, especially where he can follow it up quickly with pressure in the center. Played this way, I think the opening works — but you’ll have to use the PGN file to do some of your own analysis to feel comfortable with these tricky lines.

After all, though I’d call 3…Bb4 a shortcut, that doesn’t mean it isn’t complicated.

A move I see quite often in blitz, for example, is the blunder 4.fxe5? when Black gains a winning advantage after 4…Bxc3 5.dxc3 (5.bxc3!? is similar, as discussed in the article) 5…Qh4+ etc. Many players on ICC will simply resign at this point, though I don’t think they should. They might at least play 6.Ke2 when either 6…Nxe5 or 6…Qxe4+ wins a pawn and forces the White King to continue his perilous journey, but things are still pretty wild, especially at high speeds. The more wily opponents who fall into this trap, however, will attempt to turn the tables with 6.g3!? Qxe4+ 7.Qe2 Qxh1 (simply 7…Qxe5 is adequate for advantage) 8.Nf3, when Black definitely has to play precisely if he is not to fall victim to a Mammoth Trap.

anti-pierce mammoth trap

Basically, the only way to extricate the Queen is to play the counter-intuitive 8…d5! (or 8…d6) allowing 9. exd6+ (better, actually, is 9. Kf2! Bg4 10. Bg2 Qxh2! when Black remains only the Exchange ahead) 9… Kf8! (not 9… Kd8?? 10. dxc7+ Kxc7 11. Bf4+ Kd8 12. O-O-O+ and Black is lost; interestingly, if White captures 5.bxc3!? earlier, the King has to run the other way with 9…Kd8!) 10. dxc7 Bg4 and White is busted. A rather crooked path, and definitely one you should know well rather than walking blindly along it!

As the present article and my earlier one on “Frankenstein and Dracula Meet the Werewolf” suggest, there is a lot of room in the Vienna for interesting exploration that is not to be found in any book. Other anti-Vienna pieces include “Vienna with Bc4 Busted?” and “More Anti-Vienna.”

There are still some areas of uncertainty in the anti-Pierce analysis, which is only natural given that there is so little theory and so few good games to offer guidance. Therefore, take this as a bit of path-breaking that only points us in the right direction. And, if it brings you success in your own games, please send them to me so that I can improve my map of this terra incognito….

Tiviakov, Lahno Are European Champions

3 May 2008

Going into the last round of the European individual championships, eight players were tied for first, but only Sergei Tiviakov of the Netherlands won, so he is the 2008 European champion. In the women’s section, Kateryna Lahno of the Ukraine, the leader before the last round, drew her final game against Anna Ushenina of the […]

GMs by Federation

3 May 2008

Using Wikipedia’s list of all current & historical GMs (see It’s Official: 180 GMs by 1978 for background), I counted GMs by federation. Here are federations with 20 or more GMs.

Some of the data is inconsistent. Botvinnik is listed under ‘Russia’ while Smyslov is listed under ‘Soviet Union’, but that’s easily adjusted.

Combination for Positional Advantage; When Does the Computer See It?

1 May 2008

Continuing with Fischer - Keres, Zurich 1959, the diagram shows a position where a Keres inaccuracy allowed Fischer to execute a combination for positional advantage. Keres played 20…Nxd4 21.N3xd4 Rxc1, when both Fischer and Kasparov assigned ‘?’ to Black’s last move.

Fischer: ‘Overlooking White’s follow-up. After 21…exd4 22.Rxc8 Qxc8 23.Qxd4 Nc5 White has precisely nothing.’ • Kasparov continued the variation and agreed: ‘24.Bd2 Qe6 25.f3 Qe5, Black would have solved all his problems.’

The problem with 21…Rxc1 is that after 22.Bxc1 exd4, it allows 23.Nh6+! gxh6 24.Qg4+ Kh8 25.Qxd7, when Fischer noted (and Kasparov agreed) that ‘Black’s extra Pawn is meaningless in view of the mangled Pawn formation.’

Zurich 1959
Keres, Paul

Fischer, Robert
(After 20.Bd3-b1)
[FEN “1qr1rbk1/1b1n1ppp/p1np4/1p2pNB1/3PP3/5N1P/PP3PP1/1BRQR1K1 b - - 0 20″]

I didn’t let my chess software run on any position for more than a couple of minutes, but it only evaluates the position as ’slightly better’ for White after 25.Qxd7. Starting with 21…Rxc1, which was its preferred move, it evaluated the subsequent positions as ’slightly better’ for Black.

BCC chess this Sat. - Swiss #16

30 Apr 2008

This is a late addition to the event calendar, which can always be found at <http://boylstonchessclub.org/Upcoming_BCC_Events.html>.

Hope to see you there!

Swiss #16

Saturday, May 3
4SS, G/60.
EF: $24, $17 to BCF members.
Prizes: Based on entries.
Registration: 9:15 - 9:55am. Rd 1: 10:00, Rd 2: 12:40, rest ASAP.

Tiny Chess Set

30 Apr 2008

From The Times
April 30, 2008

Tiny chess set built between heartbeats

TYUMEN A microscopic chess set no bigger than a match head could be the smallest board game in the world. The board is 3.5 mm by 2.5 mm and the gold and silver pieces are 0.15 mm and 0.3 mm high.

The set is one of the most remarkable works of the Russian micro-miniaturist Vladimir Aniskin, who has spent a decade perfecting his craft. He uses powerful microscopes and equipment that he designed himself and says that he must work between his heartbeats to create the tiny pieces.

“While working I hold my creation in my fingers,” he said. “Even one’s heartbeat disturbs such minute work, so particularly delicate work has to be done between heartbeats.”

The chess took six months to complete and he has about another 40 works to his name. His first was a grain of rice inscribed with 2,027 letters. “The rice grain took three months, camels in an eye of a needle took two months and camels in a horse hair also took two months,” he said. “Even with these simpler jobs it is still time-consuming.”

Mr Aniskin, 30, works at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science in Tyumen, specialising in developing microphobes for aerodynamic investigations.

Morphy Invariably Played the French 3.exd5

29 Apr 2008

While working on my latest ‘Every Move Explained, 1969 Sarajevo - Kovacs vs Korchnoi, I discovered a mention by Tarrasch that Morphy ‘invariably adopted’ the Exchange Variation of the French Defense, 3.exd5.

Since I’m always intrigued by logical inconsistencies, I decided to investigate. I found 10 Morphy games that started 1.e4 e6, followed by 2.d4, the only move played by Morphy. Six games continued 2…d5 (Anderssen played 2…g6?!), when Morphy played 3.exd5. Here’s a PGN-compatible opening tree showing game counts for each move.

1.e4 e6 2.d4 {x10} 2…d5 {x6} (2…g6 {x2}) (2…c5 {x1}) (2…c6 {x1}) 3.exd5 {x6} 3…exd5 {x6} 4.Nf3 {x6} 4…Nf6 {x3} (4…Bd6 {x2}) (4…Be6 {x1}) 5.Bd3 {x3} 5…Bd6 {x4} (5…Be6 {x2}) 6.O-O {x4} 6…O-O {x4} 7. Nc3 {x4} 7…c6 {x2} (7…c5 {x1}) (7…Bg4 {x1}) 8.Bg5 {x2} 8…h6 {x1} ( 8…Bg4 {x1}) 9.Bh4 {x1} 9…Bg4 10.h3 Bxf3 11.Qxf3 Nbd7 *

The main line is from Morphy’s 1958 match against Loewenthal.

[Event “London m”]
[Site “London”]
[Date “1858.07.19″]
[Round “10″]
[White “Morphy,Paul”]
[Black “Loewenthal, Johann Jacob”]
[Result “1-0″]
[Eco “C01″]

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bd3 Bd6 6.0-0 0-0 7.Nc3 c6 8.Bg5 h6 9.Bh4 Bg4 10.h3 Bxf3 11.Qxf3 Nbd7 12.Bf5 Qc7 13.Rae1 Rae8 14.Re3 Bf4 15.Re2 Rxe2 16.Nxe2 Bd6 17.Bxd7 Nxd7 18.Ng3 Re8 19.Nf5 Nf8 20.Bg3 Bxg3 21.fxg3 Re4 22.c3 Nh7 23.h4 h5 24.c4 Nf6 25.Nxg7 Ng4 26.Nxh5 Rxd4 27.Nf6+ Nxf6 28.Qxf6 Rxc4 29.Rf5 Rg4 30.Re5 Qc8 31.Re7 Qf8 32.Qe5 Qg7 33.Re8+ Kh7 34.Qh5+ 1-0

The Knight’s Tour by Frederic Friedel

29 Apr 2008

Frederic Friedel: The Knight’s Tour

from his column in Chessbase online.
In February 2003 a nine-year-old boy cause a minor sensation on German TV. It was on the show “Wetten dass..?”, which translates approximately to “Want to bet..?” The format is that a series of candidates propose to be able to do impossible feats, live and in front of the camera. For instance uncork a bottle of wine using a corkscrew attached to the landing gear of a helicopter.

The boy on the show was Xaver Neuhäusler from the state of Bavaria, and the bet was that this young lad could complete a “knight’s tour” of the chessboard, completely in his head, starting from any square on the board.

A “knight’s tour” is a sequence of 64 knight moves executed in such a way that each square of the board is visited exactly once. Xaver was blindfolded and a starting square was called out to him. Without much ad the lad dictated a sequence of 64 squares that comprised a perfect knight tour.
The reaction to this feat in Germany was overwhelming. Newspapers were full of it, people discussed it on trains and busses, in offices and schools, and we received dozens of calls asking us to tell the story on our web site.

Well this is what we are doing. And it leads to a small dilemma. Should we not simply report the story, one that has produced such universal interest for a chess-related subject? Should we join the speculation that we might have encountered a future chess world champion, or at least been witness to an prodigious feat of pure genius? Or should one look deeper? Even if it detracts from a moment of glory for a nine-year-old child? Will anyone cheer if we shoot down a legend that has moved a nation? Our decision can be seen at the end of the article. But first let us take a look at the mechanics of the knight’s tour.

Earliest examples
A “Knight’s Tour” of the chessboard, as originally proposed, is a sequence of moves by a knight such that each square of the board is visited exactly once. The questions raised were: can the knight indeed make such a tour; and if it can, how many different knight tours are there? A comprehensive history of the knight’s tour is to be found on George Jelliss’ ‘Knight’s Tour Notes’, from which the following historical examples are taken.

The first question was answered in a ninth century Arabic manuscript by Abu Zakariya Yahya ben Ibrahim al-Hakim. The author give two tours, one by Ali C. Mani, an otherwise unknown chess player, and the other by al-Adli ar-Rumi, who flourished around 840 and is known to have written a book on Shatranj (the form of chess then popular).

A “closed tour” is one in which the square at the end of a knight’s tour is a knight move away from the first square, as in the second example above. The master of Shatranj as-Suli, who based his works on those of al-Adli (which he criticised), published the following two closed tours:
The first example shows perfect axial symmetry on the left halfboard, the second is composed of two quasi-symmetrical half-board tours.

The first comprehensive mathematical analysis of the knight’s tour was presented by the eighteenth century mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) to the Academy of Sciences at Berlin in 1759. The Academy had proposed a prize of 4000 francs for the best memoir on the problem, but that the prize was never awarded, probably since Euler was at that time Director of Mathematics at the Berlin Academy and presumably ineligible.

If you want to learn a closed knight’s tour by heart pick one of the above by Leonhard Euler. Learning a closed tour had the important advantage of allowing you to start from any square on the board and complete the tour from there.

How many knight’s tours are there?
The number of knight’s tours that are possible on a normal chessboard is surprisingly big. Actually it is so big that simple counting of tours is out of reach even for the fast computers of today. The problem has to be tackled in other ways. In 1995 Martin Löbbing and Ingo Wegener proclaimed that “the number of knight’s tours equals 33,439,123,484,294“. They obtained this result by running 20 Sun workstations for four months.

In 1997 Brendan McKay used another method (splitting the board into two halves) and got the result 13,267,364,410,532. To give you an idea of the magnitude of these numbers, a computer searching and finding tours at a speed of one million tours per minute would need more than 25 years to calculate the number of tours given by McKay.

The Magic Knight’s Tour
If you really want to show off you should not just learn one of the closed tours given above, you should go for a “magic knight’s tour”.

In a magic knight’s tour the steps, if numbered, make a magic square. This is an arrangement of the numbers from 1 to n in a matrix, with each number occurring exactly once, and such that the sum of the entries of any row, any column, or any main diagonal is the same.

Full magic knight’s tours are not possible on n x n boards for odd numbers, and are believed to be impossible for the 8×8 chessboard. The “most magic” knight tour known on the board is the Semimagic Square illustrated in the above left figure having main diagonal sums of 348 and 168. Combining two half-knights’ tours one above the other as in the above right figure does, however, give a full Magic Square, in which the diagonals add up to 260 – but the steps 32 and 33 are not linked by a knight’s jump.

All known magic knight’s tours of the normal chessboard are listed here. There are 131 different geometrical forms.

Practising the knight’s tour
In the 19th century H. C. Warnsdorff presented a practical method of constructing knight’s tours (”Des Rösselsprungs einfachste und allgemeinste Lösung”, Schmalkalden, 1823). The aim is simply to avoid creating dead ends – squares from which the knight cannot get further without getting to an already visited square. For that reason the possible squares to be chosen next are examined before every move. One counts the number of free new choices – entrances – every one of them has, and then moves to the square with the lowest number of new choices.

If you want to try out this method you can do so on this excellent page by Gunno Törnberg. It contains a Java applet which demonstrates the efficiency of Warnsdorff’s rule. When you click a square all legal jumps are displayed and the number of free entrances to each of the squares is displayed. You simply choose the lowest value, or one of them if there are a number of equal choices. Here’s a simple applet that will allow you to practice the knight’s tour in general. On the same site there is also an applet that will solve the tour from any start square.

The above is a delightful little program (28 KB exe) that you can use to practise the knight’s tour.

Another larger Delphi program (executable 434 KB) allows you to practise and solve the problem, including closed tours. In case you become seriously interested the author has supplied the full source on his knight’s tour page.

How difficult is the knight’s tour?
Let us return to our nine-year-old boy on the TV show. As mentioned in the introduction to this article Xaver Neuhäusler was able to complete a knight’s tour blindfolded and from a starting square given to him by the host of the show. Exactly how prodigious was this feat? How deeply must we be impressed?

In order to test the effort involved in learning a knight’s tour we asked a guest who was visiting over the weekend of the TV show whether she could do it. Elizabeth Pähtz is the current women’s under 18 world champion, and she was in Hamburg to play in the first German Internet championship. “I used to be able to do the knight’s tour when I was a child,” Elli told us, “but now I have forgotten how it went.”

So we asked her to try to learn it again. Using a knight’s tour of her choice Elli started learning it by heart. It’s not as easy as it looks! With some effort Elli was able to master a tour in 40 minutes. It must be mentioned that the poor thing was in some pain, having had two wisdom teeth extracted a few day previously. So there was some problem with motivation.

How about someone who is not a very strong chess player. Thomas Friedel, 20, gave up competitive chess when he was 14 and is now a full-blood programmer. How would an algorithmic mind fare with the task?

After 12 minutes studying the diagram Tommy announced that he could do it. And indeed, with Elli checking the moves he completed a knight’s tour flawlessly on an empty chessboard.

With some effort Tommy was able to dictate the squares without looking at the chessboard. He could only do the tour starting from one starting square, but wagered that with half an hour of practice he could pick it up at any point in the closed circuit. Maybe an hour to do it reliably, dictating the squares with a blindfold covering his eyes.

Sorry, Xaver, for demystifying your great performance. And sorry everybody for being such spoilsports. We can only close by giving you the following advice: pick a knight’s tour above, invest an hour or two learning it, use one of the gorgeous little programs to practise it and be prepared for your moment of glory. If you don’t make it to a big TV show it at least makes for a great party trick.

Frederic Friedel

Addendum
There are two points I would like to add, both of which came up after the above article was published. The first is that a Hamburg programmer, Tim Spitzer, actually taped the “Wetten dass..?” show and replayed it in stop motion. He retraced the closed knight tour that Xaver Neuhäusler had used. Here it is for the record:

The knight’s tours of George Koltanowski
The second point was brought to my attention by an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in years. After reading my article he wrote to me reminding me of the most remarkable knight’s tour we – both of us together – had ever witnessed. I shamefully admit that it had completely slipped my mind while I was dealing with the young German TV star.

It happened many years ago, at a US chess club, where a blindfold master was giving a demonstration of his extraordinary abilities. At one stage he asked for a helper from the audience, and I was pushed and poked by my friends to take the stage. There the master gave me block of sticky notes and asked me to write down names, words and numbers dictated at random by the audience. Each was stuck on a big demo chessboard, starting from the square a8 and working sequentially to h1.

The audience call out a variety of words: names of cities, family members, phone numbers, abstract expressions. It went something like: Dayton, Margaret-Lee Farrow, pride before a fall, 212-783-4529, my dad’s dog Skippy. While this was going on the master sat on his chair, listening to the audience, chatting with them. He was completely relaxed and not making any visible effort to memorise the notes.

After all the squares had been covered the master was blindfolded. He then asked someone in the audience to name a square on the chessboard. Starting from that square he started repeating words and numbers, while I removed the corresponding sticky notes from the demo board. The order of the words resulted in a perfect knight’s tour. I believe he got one or two words slightly wrong, on the lines of Margaret-Mae Farrow instead of Margaret-Lee. All the numbers were perfect.
Now that is a truly remarkable feat. We were all deeply impressed, not the least because the master was approaching ninety years in age! He was George Koltanowski, one of the greatest mental acrobats the world has ever seen. George Koltanowski, 1903-2000, copyright (C) San Francisco Chronicle 2000

George Koltanowski was born in Antwerp on Sept. 17, 1903. He developed his prodigious memory skills by studying memory games while he was very ill as a child and confined to bed for a couple of years. When he was 14 he started playing chess, and at the age of 21 when he played and drew Siegbert Tarrasch at the 1924 Meran tournament. In the early thirties he was the top Belgian player, beating Akiba Rubinstein in Antwerp 1931 and drawing Alekhine at Hastings 1936/37. He was awarded the title of IM in 1950 and in 1988 he was given an honorary GM title by FIDE.

Koltanowsky held a number of records in another area of chess. For centuries, the greatest masters in the world tested their mettle by playing blindfolded. It was long believed that three blindfolded games at once marked the limit of human capacity. Then, in 1933, Alexander Alekhine successfully played 32 simultaneous blindfolded games. Later, other grandmasters left Alekhine’s record in the dust. Koltanowski set the current record, playing 56 blindfolded games San Francisco in 1960. He played the games sequentially at 10 seconds a move in 9 hours, scoring +50 =6. He also gave huge simultaneous displays with sight of the board, playing 271 games in 1949 and 110 in 1955.

(Some of this is described in an article entitled “The Einstein Factor“, a very readable article which explains in general terms why everyone should play chess).

When the Nazis overran Belgium during World War II, several of his family members perished in the Holocaust. Koltanowski was on a chess tour of Central America and was allowed to immigrate to the United States, mainly because a chess-playing consul in Cuba had been amazed by one of his demonstrations. He started writing a column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He had completed over 19,000 instalments when he died of complications resulting from congestive heart failure in February 2000, at the age of 96.

A full obituary is still available in the archives of the San Francisco Chronicle: Grandmaster Of Chess, George Koltanowski.

Frederic

Chess and Computers: Using Brute Force

29 Apr 2008

In 1975 in my 4th computer programming course at Boston State as a grad student, I learned the new programming language called Basic. Having completed all my projects, the professor threw at me the challenge/assignment to write a program that would perform a knight’s tour. I was to figure a way to use arrays and code a virtual knight hopping around the board with the goal of not stepping on the same square twice. Then print out the successful route.

We were no longer using the IBM 8K cpu computer (yes 8K=8000) but allowed to use the State College Ciber 7 system. To use it people had to take a number like in a deli and wait for hours for the privilege to use the incredible Dec writer terminals or less elegant teletype terminals in order to key in their programs. Programming success in those days was due to perseverance, patience, and insensitive butts.

CPU time at the processor level was rationed to 3 minutes CPU time a job due to wise guy students like Mike Griffin who wrote a program that used 3.5 hours to calculate 28 places of Pi, but I digress.

My first approach in writing the tour was to have the program “look ahead” and store potential legal moves until it saw all 64. But that approach was going badly. Then in a flash of inspiration, I resorted to using the random number generator to just have my knight jump in randomly generated virtual legal hops, store the jumps, and reset all over again if unsuccessful: if having landed on a square twice. But if successful, print out the notation and try again until I gave the command to escape. This monkey banging on the typewriter approach was successful a couple of times per my 3 minutes per attempts. My professor was impressed when I walked in with printouts of my knight’s tours. He was tickled at my unexpected approach. Then by brain storming we developed a heuristic weight system; making the center squares more valuable and the biased knight would try hopping away from the center if possible. This really cut down on the unsuccessful attempts.

Use of the brute force of computers to solve problems, instead of relying on elegant programs, has served me well professionally many times. Let the computer do the work, while you avoid the pain of having to think too hard.

For you geeks who like brute force there is a tremendous article at the Chess Cafe by Dadi Jonsson about how GM Helgi Olafsson, demonstrated to Bobby Fischer using a very extensive endgame position filtering methodology and PC/chess software, that Fischer’s claim about the 1984 Karpov – Kasparov match in Moscow being fixed was unjustified.

A very interesting story. For you geeks; you can speed read past the chess diagrams just get a hang Fischer’s claim.

And for you pure chess-junkies you can speed read past the position filtering details just get a hang of Olafsson’s methodology.

But the conclusion is way cool and I bet some of you geek-chess-junkies will put this approach to good use some day in your future.

BTW I feel demonstrations like this prove adjournments should never happen anymore unless we create special ground rules like: U1800 have to use 286’s and U3000 have to use 386’s.
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/chessok17.pdf

What do you think about banning all adjournments?

Do you have chess computer stories?

Or feelings about the 1984 world championships?

Please comment Mike Griffin 04/29/2008

For more on the knights tour and computers, read the adjacent post of an extremely interesting article by Frederick Friedel.

Weeramantry - Bisguier, USATE 2008

29 Apr 2008

I have annotated the game Weeramantry - Bisguier, U.S. Amateur Team East 2008, which would be interesting enough because of the players themselves, who have been so important to the history of chess in the U.S. But it also features a very interesting theory duel from these Open Game specialists in the rare line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 g6!?

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 g6!?

You don’t see that very often, in part because theory says Black cannot afford such a slow development of the Bishop with White opening up lines so rapidly. In fact, several books recommend that White play in gambit style with 5.Bg5 or 5.c3, though (as I indicate in my notes) these are not necessarily refutations. More dangerous, perhaps, is 5.Ng5!? which I have not seen discussed before, though the existing games greatly favor White. Weeramantry played the relatively straightforward recapture 5.Nxd4 and after 5…Bg7 6.Be3 Black uncorked a novelty with 6…Na5!? I was surprised that no one had ever played this before, since the position is far from unknown. I wonder if it is something Bisguier has analyzed or if he just thought it up at the board? In any case, it makes me want to take a closer look at the whole variation.

As I mention in my Review of Dangerous Weapons 1.e4 e5, I have experimented with an Open Game system for Black built around an early …g6. Lines might include:

I actually gave it up to some extent because of the line featured in the game with an early Bc4 for White. Perhaps it’s time to have another look?

If you like this system against 1.e4, you might also consider playing the King’s Indian Defense as Black — especially what some have called the Glek Variation of the Classical (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O exd4 8.Nxd4 Re8 9.f3 Nc6 10.Be3 Nh5), as seen in the game Van der Sterren - Glek, Germany 1994. After all, the two systems are not only thematically related but they can actually begin to converge on occasion, as in the line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.c4!? Bg7 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.Nc3 Nf6 8.Be2 O-O 9.Be3 Re8 etc. — though you are not likely to see that transposition from someone who plays 1.e4. In any event, it’s nice to have an opening system that feels coherent.

I saw the Weeramantry - Bisguier game in the latest issue of Atlantic Chess News, which arrived in the mail just yesterday and includes several games from the U.S. Amateur Teams East. Chess Life (May 2008) also offers several interesting USATE games, including a remarkable loss by our club champion, NM Mark Kernighan, against a rising young star… I won’t go into the details since I’m sure Mark is still smarting from that loss, but it is worth a look. I’ll have to take another browse through the games file at NJSCF.

Recent April Results at the Boylston Chess Club

27 Apr 2008

Thursday Night Swiss

Eric Godin and Jason Rihel split first place with 3.5 out of 4 (although Jason benefited from a full point forfeit win.) In the last round, Eric upended the Boylston’s newest expert, Luke Calhoun of New Mexico, after Luke blundered in the middlegame. That left Jason and expert Simon Warfield battling to determine if anyone would catch Eric. Simon offered a pawn in a topical line of the KID bayonet attack and got some reasonable compensation for the pawn. After some unclear is it a draw or not business, Jason converted the subsequent rook and extra pawn endgame to tie for first.

Finishing at 3.0 points were expert Julian Chan and A player Ruben Portugues.

Also, a warm welcome to newcomer Garry Camy, who played in his first event, and Scott Griffin and Ted O’Donnell, who played in their second BCC event.

BCC Spring Open

Chris Chase won the 2-day Spring Open, finishing with 3.5 out of 4, a half point ahead of Julian Chan at 3.0. Chris had a string of two months at the club without a loss OR a draw (16 game winning streak), but that was broken by a third round draw with Julian. Perhaps that is because he also played simultaneously in the Sunday Octad?

BCC Sunday Octad:

Chirs Chase also won the Sunday Octad, going a perfect 3.0 while playing in two events at once. Clearly, Chris has regained his form and is playing well. In Sunday’s event, he defeated two expert players, Carey Theil and Luke Calhoun, who finished with 2.0.

Also welcome Darell Rose, who played in his first BCC tournament this weekend.

Chessbase.com on Kasparov

27 Apr 2008

For the past few months I’ve been using my weekend post as an excuse to work on background material on the Soviet School, along with a related digression on Ratings. This weekend I’ll make a one time digression for the greatest Soviet player of all time.

While putting together Catching Up with Kasparov (chess.about.com), one of my intermediate tools was a working file with links to Chessbase.com articles on Kasparov covering the period 2003-2008. Since the Chessbase material might be useful to other researchers, I created a support page called Chessbase.com posts on Kasparov (www.mark-weeks.com). The large number of excerpts bumps into copyright law, but I’ll take the chance that it’s acceptable.

Tough Competition at the European Championships

26 Apr 2008

Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia, the top seed and No. 25 in the world, and Emil Sutovsky of Israel are the leaders of the men’s European Championships after six rounds. Each has 5.5 points. Viktorija Cmilyte of Lithuania, Anna Ushenina of the Ukraine and Ekaterina Kovalevskaya of Russia, who each have 5 points, are tied for […]

Go Vigorito! Boylston Champion, Massachusetts Champion, US State Champion of Champions - onto the US Chess Championship!

26 Apr 2008

WCL Newsletter Vol. II - issue XVII Friday, April 25, 2008

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USCF Month: only 24 Days to Tulsa for CofC-MAWorld Chess Live - April 20, 2008 -
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The United States Chess Federation and World Chess Live are pleased to announce that, after a close competition, IM David Vigorito, representing Massachusetts, has won the fourth U.S. State Champion of Champions event and will now go forward to the 2008 Frank K. Berry U.S. Chess Championship, 13-21 May, in Tulsa, Oklahoma
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Fifty state champions from Alaska through California to Hawaii, and from Maine through to New York and Florida battled their way through the Eastern and Western Conferences held on WCL (http://www.worldchesslive.com/, the new sister-site of the Internet Chess Club), with the top four contesting the Finals.
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The four who battled their way through the Blitz Conference qualifiers to the Finals Weekend were: Western Conference: IM Vinay Bhat (Northern California) and IM Enrico Sevillano (Southern California). Eastern Conference: IM David Vigorito (Massachusetts) and IM-elect Ray Robson (Florida).
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In the semifinals, both Vigoreto and Sevillano scored convincing 2-0 wins, respectively, against Robson and Bhat to set-up the final match-up of Southern California versus Massachusetts. And in that final, it was David Vigorito, 36, from Andover, MA, who snatched the final U.S. Chess Championship qualifying spot by taking the title 1.5-0.5.
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“It’s [The U.S. State Champion of Champions event] tough and demanding, yet at the same time innovative by being played online,” commented David Vigorito after winning the title. “It was nice to be able to go to Tulsa having won through — and doubly so by representing my home-state of Massachusetts.”

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This unique event demonstrates that online chess and over-the-board chess can indeed be a perfect mix – even for one of the world’s most famous national championships.

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First, each player in the tournament had to prove themselves OTB by winning (or scoring highly in) their relevant state championship to be invited, then they had to play online on WCL (both in an all-play-all Blitz for the conference qualifiers, and then the G\60 knockout finals, with independent proctors officiating at each venue to ensure fairness throughout), with the winner going forward to the U.S. Chess Championship.
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The press reported the event such as in the telegram.comUSCF reports of course the results with an interview of IM David Vigorito by WGM Jenny Shahade

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Two Share Lead of Grand Prix After Five Rounds

26 Apr 2008

Alexander Grischuk of Russia and Wang Yue of China are tied for the lead of the first Grand Prix tournament with 3.5 points after five rounds. Four players are a half point back. Standings, games and video interviews with the players are available on the tournament’s official Web site. Today is the first rest day […]

Stapler Takes Staple Puller

25 Apr 2008

Topalov and SG bank (0:31) • ‘Topalov advertising SG bank ‘

Language? Bulgarian, I guess.

 

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