Chess

This blog post is taken from my old article and is intended as continuation of my articles about endings with each side having a rook and a bishop of opposite color, and the article about rook endings with 2 pawns vs. 1. The idea behind these series is the approach that Nimzowitsch used to call “a radioactive method” – selecting a rather narrow topic, and by learning a lot about it, understand chess much better in general. This time I would like to look at endings with rook + knight Vs. rook + knight. This material balance is also a quite frequent guest in tournaments, and some classical ideas and endgames have become well-known. Nonetheless, there is some lack of discussion of this topic in chess literature. Mikhail Botvinnik was well known for his great technique in this type of endings, and I would strongly recommend to the reader to study two famous endgames Botvinnik-Alekhine 1938, and Botvinnik-Levenfish, 1937. Instead of these, I included several less known examples from his career.

Morozevich Alexander (2625) – Volkov Sergey (2605)
Samara 73/309, 1998

32…Rc8 Let’s look at a typical game with this material balance. In this position Black is suffering from a bad pawn structure and passive pieces. 33.Re6 Obviously White does not want to trade off his rook – the best piece to collect Black’s pawns. [33.Rxc8 ? 33...Kxc8 gives Black a decent position] 33…Rc7 34.a3 !? a useful waiting move; now White can move the N from d3 and attack Pd4 with the King. 34…Ne7 [34...Re7 Black cannot insist trading rooks, as now it would cost him a pawn! 35.Rxe7+ Nxe7 36.Nf4 Nc6 37.Ne6 g6 38.Kd3] 35.Rd6 Nc6 Again, Black has to come back; White’s active rook paralyzes his pieces. 36.Nf4 Rf7 37.Ng6

Threatening Rxc6 37…Rc7 38.h5 Pg7 and Pf5 are cut off from each other and White can threaten to pick them up at any point 38…a5 39.Rd5 Rf7 40.Nh4 f4 41.Rf5

Now! White got the pawn structure he wanted (b4 covered, g7 fixed) and himself offers the exchange of rooks. The knight endgame is a nightmare for Black, so keeping the rook is his only chance for any counter play. 41…Rd7 42.Rxf4 d3 Desperate sacrifice. White won in a few moves. 43.cxd3 Nd4 44.b4 a4 45.Ng6 Rd5 46.Rf7+ Ka6 47.Nf4 Rd6 48.Rxg7 Rc6 49.Nd5 Rc2+ 50.Kd1

   1-0 This victory was part of Morozevich’s amazing rise to the chess stars during 1998.

The game illustrates typical themes for chess endgames with Rook + Knight:

• Pawn Structure – weak pawns are vulnerable
• Active Rook
• Timely Transition into Knight Endgame

Source: chessblogger

Polly’s chess traveling road show is on it’s way.  I’ve made my 3rd annual appearance at the Grand Pacific Open in Victoria, British Columbia.  I debated whether or not I wanted to go.  I’ve not been playing much chess this year.  My addiction to Thursday Night Cracktion has ceased for the time being.  I did made my 36th appearance at the USATE where I played some really crappy chess on Saturday and Sunday.  I only redeemed myself with two wins on Monday.  I don’t know if I was too embarrassed or just plain fed up to even blog about the tournament. 

Off on a tangent there. Back to resuming my travels.  Despite my life being filled with non-chess things such as cycling and Tae Kwon Do, I decided I missed the enjoyment of getting away for awhile and playing a little chess.  If all else fails, I know I will enjoy seeing old friends and meeting some new ones.

I flew to Seattle yesterday, via Chicago.  For a change I got out to Seattle in the early evening instead of the middle of the night.  By the time I got to my hotel my body was telling me it was 10:30 pm, but it was only 7:30.  I couldn’t exactly go to bed.  Also I’ve been participating in the 100 Day Challenge.  This challenge simply is doing some sort of exercise for at least 30 minutes a day.  I don’t count wandering around airport terminals as real exercise.  Yesterday I had not done any real exercise, so I took a nice walk in Seattle.  I carried my little point and shoot camera with me.  Damn, some of these pictures are as good as some of the ones I take with my fancy DSLR.

Source: Castling Queen Side

Source: Chess Manitoba

Mate in 2 (Lindgren)

Source: Chess Manitoba

See the crosstable here

Also, the Baron-Reimer match has been rated

Congratulations to the following who achieved peak ratings:

Cody Baron
Anthony Boron
Ryne Swift
Leor Wasserman

Source: Chess Manitoba

Mate in 2 (Katz)

Source: Chess Manitoba

Interesting news from the Anand Gelfand 2012 official website

Viswanathan Anand

Between 1984 and 2012, Anand played 1496 games: +440-265=791 in tournaments with classical time control. Playing white he scored 68%, and playing black, 56%. Between 1991 and 2012 he played 1224 games in rapid chess and blitz: +527-151=564.

The most productive year of Anand’s career was 1990 when he played 92 classical time control games. He played 86 games both in 1986 and 1987.

Anand’s highest ranking during his career was 2817 (March to September 2011). Vishy was number one in the FIDE rankings eight times, for the first time in April 2007 (ranking 2786).

When playing in world championship matches, Anand has not yet won the top ranking. In 2008 before his match with Kramnik he was 5th; in 2010 before his match with Topalov he was 4th. As of March 1, 2012 the Indian’s ranking was 2799, which puts him in 4th place in the FIDE rankings.

More details in the Anand Gelfand 2012 newsletter

Boris Gelfand

Between 1983 and 2012 Gelfand played 1591 games in classical time control tournaments:  +463-212=916. Playing white he scored 63%, and playing black, 52%. Between 1991 and 2012 he played 878 games in rapid chess and blitz: +300-209=369.

The most productive year of Gelfand’s career was 1996 when he managed to play…104 “classical” games. He played a succession of matches in Wijk aan Zee, Amsterdam, Dos Hermanas, Madrid, Novgorod, Dortmund, Vienna, Yerevan, Tilburg and Groningen, with detours to play in the European Championship final in Berlin, with the German and Austrian leagues.

Gelfand’s highest ranking was 2761 (January 2010). His highest FIDE ranking was fourth place, which Boris held for a year (starting in July 1990) with scores, respectively, of 2724, 2732, 2733 and 2715. Throughout the 1990s he continuously remained in the top 10, and then top 20…Today, with 2727 points, Gelfand is at his all-time low (22nd place) in the rankings for the last 25 years, after being number 10 in October 1987.

Anand Gelfand 2012 games

The World Chess Championship 2012 will be a match between the current world champion Viswanathan Anand of India and Boris Gelfand of Israel, winner of the Candidates tournament. The match will take place on 10–31 May 2012 in the Engineering Building of the State Tretyakov Gallery

More about Anand Gelfand 2012

I have always been wondering why many commercial chess programs don’t let me visualize my rating progress from my own database of games, and was glad to find that free chess database software SCID has this feature. Here are a couple of my charts:

My ICC rating for games with “standard” time controls (15 min+):

The drops usually correspond to times when I had to re-start my ICC account and gradually grow the rating from scratch.

My CFC/FIDE rating:

These graphs not only shows periods of rating rise and fall, but also periods of declined activity, not bad at all for a free program! My CFC rating clearly shows that most of my chess growth happened in 1998-2001. That time range coincides to lot of data points, confirming that to improve – you need to play more!

Source: chessblogger

Mate in 2 (Katz)

Source: Chess Manitoba