The One That Got Away.

Chess players, like fishers, sometimes like to talk about the beautiful game that never happened. They like to talk about the one that got away. Here is one such example.



22. Ng6!! White offers the knight. 22...Rd8. Black declines with thanks. If 22...hxg6 then there follows 23. fxg6 and White has either a mating net or wins the Black queen.

The game continued 23. Re7 Rf8 This is the only way to stop 24. Qxf7+ followed by 25. Qxg7 mate. 24. Nxf8 Rb1+ 25. Kg2 Qxf8 Again, to stop mate after 26. Qxf7+ etc. 26. Re8 That's gotta hurt! Rb6 27. Rxf8+ and Black resigned. However, a most beautiful ending that never happened was as follows...



23. Qxf7+!! Sacking the queen while the knight is still hanging! 23...Kxf7 24. Re7+ Kg8 25. Re8+! White sacs the house: a queen, a rook, and leaves a knight hanging. Rxe8 26. Bd5+ It is over. Black only has a rook to throw away before the inevitable mate. 26. ... Re6 27. Bxe6 mate. The ending is a rare minor piece mating net. A thing of beauty ... that never happened. It's the one that got away.



26. Bd5+ Mating at once! The actual game (ending with 27. Rxf8+) was played in the 4th round of the Mike Shpan Memorial TNT between Jordan Kwiatek and Dezheng Kong. Chess in Manitoba should have the game up in the next day or so. In the meantime, if you are really keen to see the whole game, have a look at Susan Polgar's Chess Discussion Forum. Thanks to Nikolai Pilafov!

Tell us about the beauty that never happened and we'll be happy to publish it. Show us the one that got away.

Jordan's Favorite Attacking Gem of the Week

I WILL figure out how to get an online java PGN player for Exclaim! online, so you can replay games automatically on the site, but Nige and I have so far been unsuccessful. Should have it figured out in a few days. For now here is a well played game in the Chigorin Ruy Lopez, with a startling novelty on move 10 from black, a blistering attack on the white Kingside, and to crown it all off, you bet, a Queen sac! Overall a wonderful game I would be proud of. Enjoy!

Here is the game with annotations by GM Tony Kosten.

Scoresheets from hell...

ChessBase has a recent article about the World Youth Chess Championship, taking place from the 17th to 29th of this month. There's a brief history of the WYCC and a good photo essay that includes some snaps of the "cuddly 11-year-old uber-prodigy" Ilya Nyzhnyk. Here's a link if you are interested in reading the story:

World Youth Chess Championship

Anyway, what I wanted to draw attention to was the unusual problems that organizers sometimes have when trying to document the moves of the games.

The following quotation refers to WFM Emine Yanik who used to play in the German League.

"Emine, who speaks German like a native, showed us how time-consuming, laborious and frustrating it can sometimes be to try to decipher moves written down in different languages by very young children. Often it takes Sherlockian skills to deduce the intention of a notation. And sometimes, in the games of the smallest of the small, the moves may not be completely legal. In one game we followed the players moving in and out of checkmate. Here the wits of the bulletin editor, and of the ChessBase program they are using, were at an end."

"...[M]oving in and out of checkmate" goes beyond the ability of the ChessBase program to handle. Now that would make you want to pull your hair out. Argg. And orthodox chess players tell me that fairy chess, and the software used to handle such heterodox versions of chess, are of no practical use. au contraire!

There is a rich variety of high level events in the world of chess right now. The Tal Memorial was just completed. The World Blitz Championship, having perhaps the strongest field in the history of such an event, was recently won by Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk over the likes of Anand, Kramnik, Leko, Morozevich and over a dozen other GMs and Super-GMs. Starting this weekend is the World Chess Cup 2007 in Khanty-Mansiysk in which 128 top players will compete in a knock-out event. In the first round, Canadian Igor Zugic will be up against Michael Adams, the strongest player in the history of chess in the British Isles. Good luck Igor! The other thing of note in the world of chess is the easily accessible videos available to anyone with an ordinary computer and an internet connection. The video of Ivanchuk's win against Anand in the World Blitz Championship is already available. Amazing. The internet has transformed and changed many aspects of chess forever ... and that includes the accessibility of chess journalism of the highest calibre. Do we live in a golden age of chess today?

Mike Shpan Memorial TNT - Round 3

I'm very reluctant to step on the toes or duplicate the efforts of Alex, Tony and others who do such a fine job with the MCA webpage and the Chess in Manitoba blog. However, a few remarks about last night's results for those who weren't there might be interesting and useful.

Jordan and I both won our games. Mine was an English (as usual) that transposed into a kind of Slav Defence line with both e-pawns removed. I wound up with an isolated queen pawn (IQP) and a timely 16. d5! bust up Gary Crawford's position. However, I very nearly got into extreme time trouble later on as Gary fought like a tiger to defend his position even though he was down a rook. Eventually, I was able to bring the win home by forcing a trade of Gary's last rook and he tipped his king over as I was down to my last 15 minutes on the clock.

I have yet to figure out how to make a game viewer work on this blog but I am trying. In the meantime, all I can do is post remarks and static positions from various games. Here is the position from my game as noted above:



White played 16. d5! and Black is in trouble. There then followed 16...c5 17. Nb5 Qb8 and then 18. Bf4 is just a red hot poker in the eye. As I noted above, Gary fought like a tiger in the endgame and make me work hard for the victory.

Jordan played a Kalashnikov Variation in the Sicilian against Daniel Oberton who grabbed an h-pawn with his king bishop and found himself facing a ferocious king-side attack. Jordan played 29...fxg3 (e.p.) and White resigned as the attack on the bishop and on h2 is too much to defend against. It looked like an uncommon finish for a Sicilian Defence with a king-side attack for Black. However, it is difficult to see where White went wrong. Jordan will have some analysis to follow.



Black played 29... fxg3 (e.p.) and White resigns.

In other games, newcomer Simon Fromme held Waldemar Schulz to a draw in an exciting battle. Dezheng "King" Kong flagged against Les Mundwiler. Les is now leading the MSM tournament with 3 points in 3 rounds followed by Simon, Waldemar and Harley Greenberg, who drew with Jim Green, at 2.5 points. Myron Kernetsky chalked up his first win in competitive chess after a 17 year absence by defeating John Wierda. Congratulations, Myron!

Myron Kernetsky was the host, for 13 years, of a public access TV show called The World of Chess. Myron tells us that as far as he knows the shows have not been preserved. Here is a question for readers of Exclam! online; are there any surviving copies of Myron's show out there? Contributions on this matter are welcome.

The results of all the games from the Shpan Memorial are now up on the MCA website. The games should be posted in the next day or so. I am in the habit of e mailing my games to Alex Nikouline to make the task of volunteers like Alex and Tony Boron easier. Other players do this as well and all this activity of recording and preserving the results and games enriches the loamy soil of Manitoba chess and keeps alive the spirit of that magazine whose first editor was Manfred Schulz.

The furious queen

Many players are familiar with the furious rook. To review:

Furious Rook: A maneuver designed to force a draw. If a player has no moves other than the moves of his rook, then if that rook can repeatedly check the opponents king, the game will often be a draw; either by stalemate if the king captures the rook, or by repetition caused by continuous checks.

We have a number of examples of the furious rook in Manitoba chess. But this is the first instance of the furious queen that I'm aware of.



Lipic, Stephen - Khedkar, Jay S. , September TNT 2007

54...d1Q? Now the White king is stalemated. If he can just get rid of those pawns ...

55. g7+ Kxg7 56. h8Q+ Kg6 Black sees the stalemate. Can it be prevented?

57. Qg7+ Kf5 58. Qg6+ Kf4 59. Qg3+ (59. Qg4+ ?? Qxg4 -+) Ke4 60. Qf4+ Kd5 61. Qe4+ Kc5 62. Qc6+

And now Black is forced to capture the queen, since 62. ...Kd4?? loses to 63. Qd7+ and White wins Black's queen and the game. The furious queen prevails!

62...Kxc6. stalemate. 1/2:1/2. Of course, 54...d1R or 54...d1B or even 54...Na5 wins for Black.

hdp 6.0 solution for Problem 2

The above is the final position to the solution. Note that the final position (as well as the initial position!) is in the shape of an exclamation mark. Thanks for the creative and interesting problem Zoltan!

Let RH indicate a rookhopper. By convention, Black goes first in such problems. Here is the solution:

1... Kxb3 2. RHb4 Kxb4 3.b8=RH Kc5 4. b7 Kd6 5. RHb6 Kc7 6. RHb4 Kb8 7. b6

Problem 2: help double stalemate with rookhoppers!

The following is a "fairy chess" problem. The term was coined by T.R. Dawson around the time of World War One. It describes a chess problem with one or more unorthodox features. Such features might include unusual pieces or an unusual board. As Michael McDowell of the British Chess Problem Society puts it, "Fairy chess is very popular with composers because of the unlimited scope offered for achieving originality."

Our problem composer, Zoltan Bodnar, has specialized over the years in a number of unorthodox chess problems. One such speciality is the help double stalemate, identified in German as hdp, in which the two sides cooperate to reach a final position in which both are stalemated. Black typically moves first in such problems.

The unorthodox features of this particular problem do not end there, however. White has no king and so it is the remaining White pieces and pawns which must be stalemated in the final position. Finally, there is also an unusual piece called a rookhopper (RH), indicated on the board by an ordinary rook rotated 90 degrees clockwise. The rookhopper moves like an ordinary rook but it is a hopper and, therefore, can only move by hopping over another piece to land on the adjacent square. The adjacent square can be empty or occupied by an opposing piece or pawn.

By identifying the problem as "hdp 6.0", the composer indicates that the problem has a unique solution with 6 moves by both sides (starting with Black by default) and it is a help double stalemate.

There is another creative aspect to this problem. What does the start position of the pieces remind you of? Zoltan has produced a most creative and interesting problem to honour this weblog that Jordan and I have begun.

Can you solve the problem?



White: 3 pawns on b5, b6, & b7. 2 rookhoppers on b1 & b3.
Black: king on b4.

hdp 6.0
ZKBodnar

My thanks to Otto Janko of The Retrograde Analysis Corner for assistance with generating the unusual diagram. His kind service is available to all at The Chess Diagrammer

Tal Memorial coverage: get it while it's hot!

The second annual Tal Memorial Tournament is being held in Moscow from November 9th to 23rd. It is an immensely strong Category 20 tourney with an average player rating of 2742 and is a double round robin format. The World Blitz Championship will also be taking place along side an exhibition "advanced chess" match between Vishy Anand and Vlad Kramnik. So promising is this tournament that I decided to post a link for all to watch the games live.

The link to a database of tournament games is http://www.russiachess.org/online2/

The link to Live games is http://www.russiachess.org/online/


Good luck to all in the Shpan btw. Lets see a great fighting finish to a fun year of chess!

Jordan

Our first problem

White to play and mate in 2.
ZKBodnar

Hanrahan - Fromme

Here's my game against Simon Fromme in the first round of the Mike Shpan Memorial TNT. Simon is from the eastern part of Germany and is here in Winnipeg to do his volunteer service. Germans can do such service as an alternative to military service which is, I think, otherwise compulsory.

Hanrahan, Nigel (1723 CAN) - Fromme, Simon (1891 GER)

1. c4 e5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Nc3



This knight would have been fine on d2 once I'd made some space for it. However, I blitzed through the opening half a dozen moves or so to see if my "unrated" opponent could keep up. "That was your first mistake," said Joseph Van Wyk after the game. I still managed to get into time trouble anyway. D'oh!

5. Nf3 Nc6 6. O-O Nb6 (6... Be7 7. d4) 7. d3 Be7 8. Nbd2 !? Tony Kosten.

5... Nb6 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. O-O Be7 8. b3 O-O 9. Bb2 Be6 10. h3 Qd7 11. Kh2 f5 12. d3 Rad8 13. Rc1 a6 14. Nb1 ?! Bf6 15. Nfd2 Nd5 16. Nc3 ...proving the pointlessness of 14. Nb1. 16... e4 17. Na4

17. dxe4 ?? Nxc3 18. Bxc3 Bxc3 19. Rxc3 Qxd2 -+

17... Bxb2 18. Nxb2 Ndb4

Interesting, but perhaps not as strong is 18... e3 19. Bxd5 Bxd5 20. fxe3

19. Ndc4... giving up the pawn. 19... Nxa2 20. Ra1 Nc3 21. Qd2 Qd4 22. e3 Qf6 23. d4 Nb5 24. Na4 ??

A terrible blunder. The two knights never found good homes and now they're done for. This is what happens when you don't have a plan, boys and girls.

24... Nbxd4 Black is simply winning now.



25. exd4 b5 26. Nc5 bxc4 27. Nxe6 27. Rxa6 I looked at this and decided against it.

27... Qxe6 28. bxc4 (28. Rxa6 could have been played here, however.) 28... Rxd4 29. Qa2 Nb4 30. Qb3 Qxc4 31. Qxc4+ Rxc4 32. Ra4 c5 33. Rd1 Rc2 34. Kg1 Nd3 35. Rxa6 Nxf2

36. Rd7 If I can get "pigs on the 7th" and somehow get the bishop in play, then I may manage a swindle yet. Certainly, the old swindler himself, Albert Boxer, would have approved of such an effort.

36... Kh8 37. Raa7 Rg8 38. h4 My last hope. 38... Ng4 39. Bh3 Ne3 40. h5 h6 41. Rf7 Rd8 42. Rad7 Rxd7 43. Rxd7 c4 44. Rd8+ Better to have checked and lost than never to have checked at all. Ha ha. 44... Kh7 45. g4 $4 fxg4 46. Bxg4 Rg2+ 47. Kh1 Why am I playing on? Shpan would, that's why.

47... Rxg4 48. Rd4 ?? My last mistake and now there is no hope for a furious rook to force a draw. 48... c3 49. Kh2 c2 0-1

Nigel Hanrahan

Competitive chess in November

Competitive chess players take note! The Grand Prix begins today, Tuesday November the 6th, and is a double round-robin event. Each player plays every other player in their group twice - once as White and once as Black. Did you know that there is a TNT at the same time?

In the past this TNT, which will be a 6 week event this year, had been called the Mike Shpan Memorial in honour of the late MCA member who hosted the Wednesday Night Chess at the Cornish Library for many years. Last year's winners in the 20-player field were Jeff Clark and T. Romeo Silva with 5/6. Waldemar Schulz won in 2005 with a perfect 6/6 score.

By the way: in order for you, who may be reading these words, to post comments here, it is necessary to get a google account. This is not difficult, however, and comments are welcome.

The opening position

Jordan's first post ... THE FIRE

Greetings all , your friendly neighbourhood Jordan here. I wanted to take this opportunity to inform the Winnipeg chess community that I recently have had a large fire @ my parents house amounting up to $300,000 in damages. I have been away from chess for a while and if anyone was wondering where I was this is what has dominated my life of late. Everyone in my family is safe and okay. We are insured. These are the positives. The fire happened as a result of me having a halogen desk lamp on my floor, reading into the early hours, I decided to go upstairs for a bite to eat. I may have only been upstairs cooking for 15-20 minutes, but that was unfortunately enough time to allow a fire to cumbust from the halogen lamp on top of my books. My 300+ book library also helped fuel the fire and in 10-15 minutes, my family lost most of our possessions. I have been staying at CanadInns Club Regent for over 2 weeks now, and the experience is becoming overwhelming . I feel of sound mind nonetheless, but it is a big struggle for me. Tragic events happen in everyones lives, and getting past them makes one a stronger person. I would appreciate talking to all my friends and buddies in Manitoba chess, I'd be happy to clairify any rumours you may have heard. Also I would appreciate the dialogue in this crazy time for me.

My email is ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

fast_chess AT hotmail DOT com.

honestly,
Jordan Kwiatek

First post for Exclam! online

Welcome to Exclam! online. The name comes from the past magazine of the Manitoba Chess Association. The idea came from a discussion between Jordan Kwiatek and onetime Exclam! editor Nigel Hanrahan as the first snow began to fly in Winnipeg in November 2007. The purpose of this blog is to provide Manitoba chess players with a friendly place to discuss chess in Manitoba, to post annotated games, to provide analysis, and to allow for the important cultural aspects of a chess community to be properly represented online.

Well, that's a start anyway. We're open to suggestions, of course, and welcome contributions.

Nigel Hanrahan
Jordan Kwiatek