Even National Masters suffer from Materialism

The diagrammed position, arising from the Leningrad Dutch Defense, is sound evidence that even titled USCF players fall prey to the Chess Sin of greed. ICC player National Master rpenquin, is a gentleman and a scholar, but became fatally weak along the h1-a8 diagonal after mistakenly "winning the exchange" snapping off the inactive Rook in the corner.

It is just a blitz game, but look at the c1 Bishop and a1 Rook the NM is neglecting while all of Black's forces are active poised to attack on the permanently weakened light squares near White's Monarch. The NM should have "talked to his pieces" in the chess psychologist Rowson fashion. They would have articulated their abject misery about being locked out of the action and poorly coordinated due the avarice and materialism of the first player.

Concretely, with White to Move, the NM has no choice but to "castle into the menacing assault" on his trepidating King.

Neophyte players should be comforted to learn that even GMs are willing subject themselves to brutal onslaughts hoping to hang on to their precious material for an endgame conversion to victory.


Finally, I would welcome the valued input of Seattle, Washington GM Gregory Serper on the soundness of this National Master's decision to engage in such risky play. Serper is flexible in his approach to Royal Game capable of attacking or defending as the position dictates. Go Seahawks!!

Online Chess IM generously exposing himself to the Chess Masses

Francis E Anquandah(Ciseric) is a decent human being and humble sportsman. He is an IM or an International Master of Chess. One of his many laudable attributes is his willingness to play the much weaker players in Blitz at the Internet Chess Club(ICC).

In the diagrammed position you see below, the weaker second player chose the variation of The French Defense where the d pawn captures the e pawn on move 3 literally destroying reams of John Watson theory on the Winawer, Advance and the positional Nd2 variation. Black managed to use his only Rook to help stunt the promotion of the White b pawn while maintaining the Queening threat of Rook to King's Knight one if we must encumber ourselves with the onerously tedious English Descriptive Notation.

Francis confidently played Rh1 believing his b pawn would jettison down the board queening before the Black pawns got rolling. This turned out to be a misjudgement by the IM as the Black King can single handedly blockade the anemic White pawns. Meanwhile Black's g pawn will reach g3 forcing through Rg1 winning for the much weaker American player.

GM Alex Ipatov would have been proud of the dominating fashion Black made his pawns "go faster" than White's foot soldiers. Sexy Anna Rudolf would concur and I believe someone so beautiful should contemplate another profession! 

Also Charlotte Chess Center & Scholastic Academy does a marvelous job of training their students in subtle nuances of Rook and Pawn endings which have reputation of being ALWAYS DRAWN.

Punish this Greedy Player

The chess champion and philosopher E. Lasker was not fond of greed and spoke of ways of punishing greed and avarice in life and chess.

Lordi, a 50 year old player at the Internet Chess Club, must not be familiar with Lasker's aversion for pawn grabbing out of the opening. With the White pieces, Lordi misplaces a Bishop at a3 and a Knight at a4 to win the Black c5 pawn. Dan Heisman would get nauseous and Rowson would excoriate the Indian player fot not "talking to the Horse and Prelate" before engaging in such unprincipled abuse of the Royal Game! You see this idea in the Nimzo Indian Defense, but the pawn chains are more locked up or closed.

So how do we punish this careless and materialistic Caissa sacrilege? The move is not  obvious, but it refutes White's poor understanding of material and piece coordination. Alex Yermolinsky student Rikkitikkitavi also still battles the addiction of pawn grabbing in opening and late middle game. The relatively slow move solution appears under the diagram.

Qe7!

Dejected player from the Netherlands

Arie Werksma from the Netherlands is an expert chess player at the Internet Chess Club. In the game you see below, he disconnected and forfeited against a USA player with a much lower rating. Werksma did not notice that his f3 Knight was hanging due to a pin of the g2 pawn by the Black Queen.

So rather than resign like a man, the Dutch player disconnected from the Blitzen interface gnashing his teeth and cursing into the humid night air of his below sea level homeland. If he only knew how much sweeter that made the victory for the weaker American player!

Mr Werksma censors players who beat him. Maybe he should noplay them as well so he will avoid the humiliation of being dominated by lower rater players.

White Disconnects and Forfeits in this Chess Game

One of the possible conditions in Blitz Chess at an American Online chess site is that if one of the contestants disconnects for whatever reason, then he loses or forfeits the game.

A member of this Internet Chess Club named SkydiverReturns disconnected in the diagrammed position below facing an unstoppable checkmate. Most of the players there are gentleman and exhibit exemplary sportsmanship choosing to resign and admitting their defeat graciously.

But this 1480 player who always castles queenside no matter what his opponent does conducted an unjustified "attack"  and chose to resign by disconnecting rather than pressing the resign button admitting his inferior play. The Black Horse at the c4 square and Queen at a3 overwhelm the exposed White Monarch when the American Fish was too embarrassed to resign like an honorable competitor.

The Engineering Correlation To Chess

One would expect there to be positive correlation between engineering ability and chess, but a person with the ICC name of Engineer does not support that view.

As you can in the diagrammed position a chess player named Engineer with the Black pieces prefers to let White slowly suffocate him. Black just moved his King's Knight back and forth waiting to be crushed with the inevitable checkmate!

White has a massive space advantage which Black appears to have desired. All of Black's minor pieces are cramped with no squares to land on.

I always thought of the engineering profession as one populated by independent, critical thinkers, but this internet chess club weak 1400 player casts some doubts.

A Grandmaster's Bank Insolvency Problem

Having been retired for over 3 years, I have really had to find a plan for my non working lifestyle. Everybody thinks retirement is the promised land because they don't have to put up with nasty, backstabbing office politics anymore.

I am ecstatic about being distant from the sometimes ruthless intentions of coworkers I shared cubicle space with, BUT a daily structure is required to preserve one's sanity.

So I read about chess in the loo every morning and wanted to share an interesting tidbit about chess player  Alexey Shirov. The source is a periodical named Inside Chess which was published in Seattle in 1995.(The things you find in Garage Sales!!)
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Back to GM Shirov who former world champ Gary Kasparov characterized as a TALENTED AMATEUR. Shirov finished clear second at a tournament in Biel Switzerland. The author of the short piece stated that Alexey had moved to Spain from Latvia because most of the GM chess player's hard earned winnings vanished due to the insolvency of his bank in Latvia!!!! I guess Latvia did not have the USA equivalent of the FDIC.

That just sucks and I feel bad for Shirov even though the disheartening event happened 24 years ago!

The same periodical reported a domestic event that was held in Stillwater, Oklahoma USA directed by Gary Greenlee that was organized by a couple of twin gentlemen who were independently wealthy and great for chess in that region. I played there once and apologize for forgetting these two humorous benefactors of our beloved game.

Why was this chess player vidoed in a restroom?

OK, so I will ask the obvious question. Why was the guy, in the picture you see, filmed in a public bathroom?

The smaller picture, in upper left hand corner, is a picture of a chess player concentrating over a difficult position in a tournament. The problem is that it is the same guy sitting on a commode without the lid open. That's right, he is a bathroom servicing the hosting chess tournament not defecating, but using a chess playing program on his smart phone.

It is in poor taste and unethical to drop his name. I will disclose he a Georgian Grandmaster. NO, not the Georgia in the United States. Bobby Fischer must be clapping in his grave as he often accused the Russians of cheating.In all fairness, American practitioners of the Royal Game cheat frequently; this guy just happened to get caught on the crapper.

I still have a problem with a guy being videoed in restroom, but maybe the tournament organizers have the right to surveil contestants in high dollar tournaments like this one in Dubai.

A not so lucky loo for this toilet troll.

Willingly taking on a passive position out of the Opening

Passive openings are becoming more popular it appears. Many players are fond of pawn structures where the pawns are not advanced passed the third rank. The modern defense and the Hippopotamus opening are examples of this preference to react rather than seize the initiative out of the opening.

A  player from Iceland named Krabbi chose a passive setup during a 3 minute blitz game at ICC. The Icelandic chess enthusiast voluntarily moved his g8 Knight back and forth from the f6 square to provoke the first player to overextend his forces.

Krabbi played OK, but eventually succumbed to an acute space disadvantage. Perhaps an example of Lev Alburt's famous title to a USCF chess life article he wrote: David versus Goliath or Don Quixote versus the Windmill where the player from Iceland played the role of The defenseless Windmill.

On a more serious note, I would love to see either GM Hess or famed trainer Vladimir Tukmakov write about intentionally taking on cramped but viable positions out of the opening.

Chess, Chemistry, and Segregation

Thoroughly enjoyed  response by the daughter of the outstanding chemistry teacher Professor Solomon at Drexel University. Mr  E.E. Dreedon had no idea of the high RPM buzz saw he set into motion when he criticized "segregated women's chess" in United States Chess Federation(USCF) tournaments.

Miss Shahade politely, but aggressively refuted Dreedon's weak argument which was about one line long in the Chess Life USCF periodical.

Professor Sally and her husband Mike produced two genius in the endeavors poker, writing, and organizing. I was part of a group breakfast many years ago in Philadelphia when Greg was  a very quiet kid, only to blossom into premier hustler of world series of poker players who perceive themselves to be good chess players.